培根论说文集(中文导读插图版)英文(txt+pdf+epub+mobi电子书下载)


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作者:( 英)培根(Bacon, F.)

出版社:中国人民大学出版社

格式: AZW3, DOCX, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT

培根论说文集(中文导读插图版)英文

培根论说文集(中文导读插图版)英文试读:

出版说明

对于古今学问、中西思想的会通之难,王国维先生的感悟最为深切:“如执近世之哲学,以述古人之说,谓之弥缝古人之说则可,谓之忠于古人则恐未也……欲求其贯串统一,势不能不用语意更广之语;然语意愈广者,其语愈虚,于是古人之说之特质渐不可见所存者其肤廓耳。译古书之难,全在于是。”今人之于古人的“以意逆志”尚且如此,又遑论国人之于西人?于是王国维先生认为“外国语中之无我国‘天’字之相当字,与我国语中之无God之相当字无以异”;经典之妙,“无论何人,不能精密译之”。

译事之难如是,中国人研读西学经典却不能不借助译本。译本或如业师,指点迷津、功不可没,然入门之后能否一窥堂奥,阡陌纵横如何辨知虚实,则不能不溯本求源。因而阅读原典、溯本求源、汲取学养为会通中西之要素之一。

在本书编委会专家、学者们的指导下,我们精选了西方历代名家经典著作的权威版本,辅之以中文

导读

,配以精美插图,分批推出“世界大师原典文库(中文导读插图版)”,供读者对比、品味、研读。

本文库内容涵盖哲学、文学、历史学、法学、政治学、经济学、社会学、心理学、人类学等,力求满足相关领域专家、学者的学术需求,力求帮助学生开阔视野、涵养通识,同时也特别为外语教师、外语类大学生、外语学习者和外语爱好者提供便捷实用的参考资料。

世界之大,在于和而不同;学问之大,在于海纳百川;心灵之大,在于兼容并蓄。我们相信,“世界大师原典文库(中文导读插图版)”会成为各界读者阅读、研究和收藏的精神大餐。杨慧林 教授 (中国人民大学副校长、博士生导师)金莉 教授 (北京外国语大学副校长、博士生导师)2012年9月导读编委会

本书作者弗朗西斯·培根(Francis Bacon,1561~1626),是文艺复兴时期英国唯物主义哲学家、思想家、科学家和语言文字学者。黑格尔认为培根是经验主义的奠基人,罗素认为培根的哲学思想具有永恒的价值,马克思称培根为“英国唯物主义和整个现代实验科学的真正始祖”。

培根是一位典型的“ born with a silver spoon in the mouth” (生来嘴里就含着一只银匙:意为出身高贵)人。他生于贵族之家,长于优裕环境,受教于剑桥大学三一学院。其父古拉斯·培根爵士是掌玺大臣和大法官(王国最高法律官职)。其母安妮·培根精通希腊文和拉丁文,是加尔文教派的信徒。

在政治上,培根宦海浮沉,盘桓跌宕,先后作过国会议员、女王的法律顾问、检察长、掌玺大臣和大法官兼上议院议长 (1618年),可谓位高禄厚,风光一时;但好景不长,三年之后培根因受贿而永远退出政坛(1621年),从此专心于学问著述,直至去世。

培根首先是一位哲学家和思想家。他反对君权神授,反对中世纪的经院哲学,提出必须清除它给人们造成的错误认识和偏见(他称之为假相),以便给认识和科学扫清道路。培根继承了古代唯物主义传统,认为自然界是物质的,运动是物质固有的最重要特性,运动是有规律的,其形式是多样的。他提出“知识就是力量”的口号。他称事物运动的规律和规定性为形式。科学的任务就是发现形式,从而获得行动上的自由,以便认识自然,征服自然,同时又服从自然的形式(规律)。他提出唯物主义经验论的基本原则,认为感觉是认识的开端,它是完全可靠的,是一切知识的源泉。基于此他重视科学实验在认识中的作用,认为必须借助于实验,才能弥补感官的不足,揭示自然的奥秘。但他的哲学具有神学的基本特征,他主张双重真理承认上帝存在。培根的“知识就是力量”的论断,以及关于经验论、感觉是认识的开端的主张等,对后世哲学家如约翰·洛克(John Locke,1632~1704)等都有重要的的影响。洛克提出人类心智在本源上是“一张白纸”,后天的思想和观念要凭经验获得。这一结论可以说是培根思想的发展和深化。

培根的哲学思想对后来的启蒙运动有很大影响,对近代哲学发展有重要贡献。培根最早表达了近代科学观,阐述了科学的目的、性质,发展科学的正确途径,首次总结出科学实验的经验方法——归纳法,对近代科学发展起到指导作用。培根是除旧立新的思想革新者,他对经院哲学的科学观和传统逻辑思维方式的批判为自然科学的发展扫清了道路。

培根一生的主要著述有:《新工具》、《学术的进步》、《新大西岛》、《亨利七世本纪》和《培根论说文集》等。《培根论说文集》的成书过程如下:

1597年初版。该版作品是小八开本,卷首有题辞,书中共有文章十篇——(1)论学问,(2)论辞令,(3)论礼仪,(4)论从者与奉人,(5)论请托者,(6)论消费,(7)论养生,(8)论荣誉与名声,(9)论党派,(10)论交涉。

1607年和1612年,《培根论说文集》又各出版一次。1612版叫做修正版,文章总数为38篇;1625年,《培根论说文集》的最后修正本出版,内容增添不少,共包括58篇文章。

自第一版出版以来,培根总是把这本文集放在身边,不断地增删修改。随着他人生阅历的丰富和改变,他的思想也不断完善修正,于是也就需要修改他文章的结构、用词、观点和结论。

综览整卷论说文集,培根的论说文主要涉及三大主题的:(1)人与世界及人群的关系,(2)人自身的问题,(3)人与上帝的关系。这三个题目彼此相互关联,全面反映培根的阅历、观点和思想;或者说,培根的阅历、观点和思想指导他完成并不断完善这些文章。《培根论说文集》的主要价值,我们认为体现在以下三大 方面:

第一,学术思想价值。《培根论说文集》是培根的阅历、观点和思想的集中体现和浓缩。

培根生活在欧洲文艺复兴之后,启蒙运动之前,在思想界是承上启下的人物。他的唯物主义思想、经验主义的理念,使他更多地关注现实、研究现实;他在论说文集里更多关注的是人间,而不是天上,虽然他相信上帝(但培根同时也承认无神论的价值:“无神论把人类交给理性,交给哲学,交给自然的亲子之情,交给法律,交给好名之心。”——“Of Superstition”);除了关注人与人、人与自然之外,他还十分重视对人自身的研究,包括修身、励志、善恶、学问、兴趣、性情、审美、婚姻等等,这说明培根是把人作为自然的人而不是当作神的附庸来对待和研究;培根一生宦海浮沉多年,甚至对官位孜孜以求,说明他更多地具有入世精神。这种入世精神,使他注重实践,注重科学实验并身体力行并由此染疾而逝。他身处官场宦途,并不影响他“至少在理论方面是一个对于道德有极深崇敬的人”、“一个对正义公道有甚深的爱慕和崇敬的人”和“永远是一个坚持真理神圣的人”(见“Introduction”)。

第二,语言文学价值。

没有人说培根是文学家、也没有人说培根是语言学家。但一部《培根论说文集》,足以给培根在文学和语言学领域一席之地。“其论说文集,稿凡三易,乃精心结构之作。不但对英国文学曾起开辟新园地、创立新风格的作用,同时也很精彩地表现了作者对人生、对社会的种种现象、种种问题的独到的见解与鞭辟入里的议论。”从初次问世之日起,《培根论说文集》就大受欢迎,风靡各界尤其是知识界。这些简短简洁的文章使余暇无多的读者喜读。他们的思想之精密与语句之简洁是一种非常难得的长处,培根的文章中实含有当时的文章的各种特性——如辞藻之富丽,思想之繁复,趣味之隽永,机锋之警锐皆是也在早期的论说中,词句干脆而对比,所以含义饱满而措辞警策往往一语破的。后来的文章里却又有典雅从容,着色鲜明之作。差不多每篇文章都自有其优点,可以说是融会众长,六家之美,各有其分。培根所表现的那种确凿不惑的了解,精密思想的“筋骨”,对学问全体的广泛认识,在比拟事物道理方面的几乎非人间的敏锐,以及对当时各种学问的渊博、直达事物之灵魂的那种卓识和极高的推理天才,在当时几乎无人出乎其右(见“Introduction”)。唯其如此,《培根论说文集》出版并传入我国之后,早已是大学英语课堂的必读之书,文学研究者和英语语言研究者的必要材料。论说文集中俯拾皆是的珠圆玉润朗朗上口、鞭辟入里、意味隽永、一语中的的名言警句,是一代又一代人学习、体味、背诵、模仿和引用的来源。对《培根论说文集》英语原版文章的文学、语言文字价值的探究,远没有结束,也没有穷尽。

第三,修辞逻辑学价值。

培根优越的家学(英语为母语外,还精通拉丁文)、丰富的阅历、加上聪明的大脑和不断的探究思考,成就了他的思想体系。体现在修辞逻辑学方面,就是他文章的缜密的结构、严谨的条理、论证的周密、铿锵的对仗和行文的流畅,最终达到力量、知识和思想的完美结合,因为培根主张:知识就是力量。这种效果非一般历练所能造就,非大家老手不能达成。因而,《培根论说文集》修辞逻辑学的价值,有待于进一步挖掘探究。

此次出版过程中,我们对《培根论说文集》的各种版本进行了对照比较,对全书原文内容由专家进行了必要的处理,使之易读易懂又不失原著风貌,我们相信本书是一个权威的版本。

最后,我们以Oliphant Smeaton先生对《培根论说文集的评价作结尾:“培根的《论说文集》可说是少数的“世界书”的一部,这种书不是为一国而作,乃是为万国而作的;不是为一个时代,而是为一切时代的(见“Introduction”)。”2012年9月以上导读主要由以下三位共同执笔:郭英剑,男,英语语言文学博士,美国宾夕法尼亚大学比较文学博士后,现任中央民族大学外语学院院长、教授、博士生导师。郭英剑教授主要从事英美文学、文学翻译、英语教学、比较文学研究和高等教育研究。高宏存,男,文学博士、文化产业管理博士后,现为国家行政学院社会文化部副教授,兼任中共北京市委干部理论教育讲师团特约报告人。主要从事中外文化比较研究、文化政策与管理研究等。鞠方安,男,英语语言文学学士,历史学博士。中国人民大学出版社外语分社社长,中国翻译协会专家会员。主要兴趣领域为英语语言文学、中外文化比较、历史学和翻译学等。培根(1561—1626)

INTRODUCTION

By Oliphant Smeaton

FRANCIS BACON—Baron Verulam and Viscount St.Albans—was born at York House,Strand,January 22,1561,the younger son,by his second wife,of Sir Nicholas Bacon,Lord Keeper of the Great,Seal.

Almost from birth Francis was a delicate child,and suffered from prolonged ill-health,a circumstance to which some biographers have attributed the gravity of manner,even in youth characteristic of him.Probably it was due rather to his intense absorption,even in early childhood,in studies commonly assigned to youths considerably his seniors.Though his earlier boyhood is almost a blank to us,save that he spent it between the family residence in London,situated near the present Strand and the Thames,and the country seat at Gorhambury in Hertfordshire,yet we obtain interesting light upon the facts of his career,when he emerges from the domestic seclusion of home to proceed in his thirteenth year with his brother Anthony,two years his senior,to Trinity College,Cambridge.

At Cambridge he remained three years,and as Macaulay,says,“departed,carrying with him a profound contempt for the course of study pursued there,a fixed conviction that the system of academic education in England was radically vicious,a just scorn for the trifles on which the followers of Aristotle had wasted their powers,and no great reverence for Aristotle himself.”

Already he had been introduced to Court life.The high station occupied by his father and the influential family connections of the had rendered this easy.Besides,the facts are matter of history,that Elizabeth on more than one occasion visited her Lord keeper in his stately home at Gornamoury,and amidst the immemorial oaks and elms of the beautiful Hertfordshire demesne the scene may have occurred in which the flattery loving Queen,in response to a graceful compliment on the part of the youth,styled him,with reference to his grave demeanour,“Her young Lord Keeper.” That he was early familiar with the etiquette and customs of Court is manifest from the first draft of the“Essays,” “On Ceremonies and Respects,” and“On Honour and Reputation.” His advice regarding conduct in high station towards superiors,inferios,and equals is characterized not only by sound reason but by a wise expediency,which looks upon the rendering of respect to superiors not as an act of Servility but of practical demanded from us by our relative station in the social hierarchy,If we do not render respect to superiors,can we expect inferiors to render respect to us?

As both Anthony and Francis looked forward to a diplomatic career,to be prepared for it they were admitted “ancients” at Gray’s Inn in June 1576 where they shortly afterwards erected the lodging which the latter continued at frequent intervals throughout his life to occupy.Three months later Francis crossed over to Paris in the suite of Sir Amyas Paulet,the English ambassador,to begin his practical training in diplomacy.The studies he pursued in Continental politics and diplomacy supplied material for those“Notes on the State of Europe” which are printed in most editions of his works.France at that time was in the throes,and Catholic and Huguenot were arrayed against each other in civil strife,by whose cruel scenes some of the most pertinent reflections in the Essay on“Faction” were suggested;“Kings had need beware how they side themselves,and make themselves as of a faction or party;for leagues within the State are ever pernicious to monarchies;for they raise an obligation paramount to obligation of sovereignty,and make the king tanquam unus ex nobis:as was to be seen in the League of France.”

But Bacon’s stay in the French capital was not destined to be long,though doubtless long enough to enable him to acquire that ready facility in the use of the language he,in after Iife,displayed.He was suddenly recalled by his father’s death,and hurried home to find his prospects decidedly overcast.To him the loss was to prove irreparable in more senses than a parental one.In vain he applied to the government,represented by his uncle,Lord Burghley for employment in some official capacity—a claim not unreasonable in view of the late Lord Keeper’s services.The jealousy of the Cecils barred the way.To the study of law Bacon therefore devoted himself anew,and with such industry,that he was called to the bar in 1582,and became a Bencher of Gray’s Inn in 1586.

For some years he drudged on in obscurity,aided by no one,and eating his heart out in unavailing regrets,as the years passed by,to others bringing promotion,to him only empty promises.In the meantime,hoping to better his circumstances through other channels than the Cecils,he entered Parliament in 1584,as representative of Melcombe Regis,and sat successively for Taunton in 1586,Liverpool,1588,and Middlesex in 1593.His political creed can be stated very briefly,consisting as it did in a persistent advocacy of a via media in all things,a middle course between popular privilege and royal prerogative,or,to express it more definitely,moderation in secular reform with toleration in religion alike to Puritan and Papist.This policy he supported in two pamphlets.The first,entitled “The Greatest Birth of Time,” published in 1585,was chiefly devoted to advocating mildness of treatment towards the recusants;the second,in 1589,dealt with the divisions in the Anglican Church over the Marprelate and other controversies,he pleaded for greater elasticity in matters of doctrine and of discipline.

Two pieces of preferment,if such they can be called,came to him at this time—he was admitted a Queen’s Counsel Extraordinary,while the Cecils,wearied by his continual importunity,were at last shamed into procuring for him the reversion of the Registrarship of the Star Chamber on the death of the occupant.As this event did not take place for many years,Bacon,like Waiter Scott with his Clerkship,experienced all the humiliation of waiting to fill dead men’s shoes.Surprise has been expressed that,considering the reputation of the late Sir Nicholas Bacon,his son,even in spite of the apathy of the Cecils,should not have received some marks of favour from the Queen.The young politician,however,in his zeal for the defence of popular privileges,had attacked,in the House,the attempt to force on the Commons a conference with the Lords,on a question of Supply;while he also had opposed the demand for large subsidies.Such offences were unpardonable without apologies the humblest,which do not appear to have been offered.Burghley and his son—Sir Robert Cecil—made the most of this “insubordination”.They fanned the spark of irritation in the Queen’s mind into the flame of indignation.Any solicitations on Bacon’s part for promotion,therefore,were met with chilling silence or polite refusal.

Bacon now resolved to be the suitor for his kinsmen’s good offices no longer.He therefore transferred his allegiance to the party of the Earl of Essex,that brilliant but impetuous young nobleman,who,after climbing so high into the favour of the Queen,fell so disastrously through conduct that had not even the merit to opportunism to palliate it.But at this time was the rising star in English politics,and the rival of the great Burghley himself.For Bacon,the young Earl conceived an affection both warm and sincere.With the advancement of his friend’s fortunes Essex specially charged himself,making request so persistently to the Queen,first for the Attorney-Generalship,next for the Solicitor-Generalship,and finally for the post of “Master of the Rolls,” that her Majesty begged him to speak on some other topic! When all these offices were put past Bacon,greatly to his chagrin,his patron consoled him with the gift of an estate at Twickenham,valued at£2000.They appear to have lived on terms of the closest intimacy,Bacon sharing in the social pleasures of Essex House,to aid which he wrote the Masque “The Conference of Pleasure”—a line of work for which Bacon evinced special aptitude,as witness his “Palace of Leading” and contributions to the “Gesta Grayorum,” written at the request of the Benchers of Gray’s inn.How profoundly he had studied even the art of amusing people is evident from his Essay on“Masques and Triumphs,” published in the 1625 edition of the work.

The question of the degree of Bacon’s culpability in undertaking a part at least of the prosecution of Essex,when,upon the failure of the latter in 1599 to suppress Tyrone’s rebellion in Ireland,and after his absurd attempt to raise an insurrection,he was impeached on a charge of high treason,is too vexed a problem to be discussed here.While on the one hand Bacon had certainly been placed in possession of the facts of Essex’s treasonable negotiations with the King of Scots,on the other he exhibited unnecessary rancour against his former benefactor,twice interposing to keep the Court in view of the main facts of the case,which Coke’s confusion had allowed the examination to wander.Professor Gardiner’s opinion is perhaps the fairest summary of both sides of the matter:“That the course Bacon took indicates poverty of moral feeling cannot be denied.Yet our sentiment on the precedence of personal over political ties is based on our increased sense of political security,and is hardly applicable to a state of things in which anarchy,with its attendant miseries,would inevitably have followed on the violent overthrow of the Queen’s fight to select her Ministers.”

Essex was convicted,condemned,and executed.So threatening.however,was the attitude of the people,to whom he appeared a national hero by his capture of Cadiz,that Elizabeth quailed before it.and insisted on an official “declaration” of Essex’s treason being prepared,which was entrusted to Bacon.In it he persistently takes the blacker view of his late friend’s conduct,refusing to admit any palliation of the crimes with which he was accused.Whether pricked in conscience over his conduct,or stung into irritation by the taunts of the friends of Essex,he issued immediately thereafter a justification of his action,with savours not a little of Jesuitical casuistry.Quis’excusec s’accuse ! There is reason to believe that the passage in the Essay on “Friendship,” written in 1607,and beginning,“There be some whose lives are,as if they perpetually played upon stage,disguised to all others,open only to themselves.But perpetual dissimulation is painful,and he that is all fortune and no nature is an exquisite Hirelinge,etc.,” which was omitted in the 1625 edition,had direct reference to Essex.

In 1597 the first edition of his “Essays” was published.The volume,which was of small octavo size,and dedicated to his brother Anthony,contained the following ten papers:(1) Of Studies.(2) Of Discourse.(3) Of Ceremonies and Respect.(4) Of Followers and Friends.(5) Of Sutors (suitors).(6) Of Expense.(7) Of Regiment of Health.(8) Of Honour and Reputation.(9) Of Faction.(10) Of Negociating.The pregnancy of the thought and the pithiness of the style rendered the book an epoch-making one.Its popularity was great,almost from the day of issue.

Elizabeth was now come to the end of her memorable reign.All her older Ministers had predeceased her.Burghley,the greatest of all,had died in I598,and was succeeded by his Son.

Scarcely had the King of Scots had time to seat himself on the throne of England,than,with all a supple courtier’s adaptability,Bacon sought to win the new monarch’s goodwill by every wile he could employ.He received the honour of knighthood in 1603,followed by a pension of £60 a year,in consideration of James’s respect for his late brother Anthony’s (who had died in 1601) staunch championship of the Scottish succession.He was also appointed a “King’s Counsel,” with an annual gratuity of £40.The means whereby he flattered the King’s Caledonian sympathies,in largest measure,however,were by advocating,both in Parliament and with his pen,a scheme for the Union of the Kingdoms as well as the Crowns of England and Scotland.His “Article’s touching the Union a skilful collection of all historical and scientific analogies bearing on the conclusion he sought to prove,viz.,that “there is a consent between the rules of nature and the true rules of policy;the one being nothing else but an order in the government of the world,the other an order in the government of an estate.” The germs of his essay on “The True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates,” in the form it assumed in the edition of 1612,are undoubtedly to be found in his“Articles Touching the Union.” The fact may also be of interest that,when in October 1604 James adopted the title of “King of Great Britany” —abbreviated into “Great Britain”—he assumed the name suggested by Bacon.The arguments of the latter,moreover,were so cogent that the join Committee,which met to discuss the terms of Union,came to an almost unanimous agreement.The majority of the Commons were also won over.and had not the King obstinately stood out for vesting the right of conferring letters of naturalisation in the Crown.The Union might have been consummated 100 years prior to the date of its actual accomplishment.

In 1605 Bacon issued the first of his great philosophical treatises,the Advancement of Learning—afterwards translated and expanded into the Latin dissertation,De Augmentis scientiarum—a noble review of the state of learning in his age,its defects,the emptiness of many .of the studies chosen,and the means to be adopted to secure improvement.His essays “On Seeming Wise,”“On Custom and Education,” and “On Studies,” are all concerned with topics indicated rather than treated of in the,Advancement of Learning,but which are nevertheless to be found there.

At the mature age of forty-five,Bacon took to wife an alderman’s daughter,named Alice Barnham,and his marriage brought him a moderate fortune,acceptable to a man as deeply in debt as he was.The ceremony was celebrated with great pomp,the bridegroom being “clad from top to toe in purple,and hath made himself and his wife such store of fine raiments of cloth of silver and gold that it draws deep into her portion.” For fifteen years Bacon’s married life appears to have flowed along placidly,until after his fall.when an estrangement took place between him and his wife which was never healed.

Thirteen months after his marriage Bacon at last obtained legal office,when he became Solicitor-General (June 25,1607).For the next two or three years he was employed in adjusting differences between the two great parties in the land,the High Anglicans,who urged the enforcement of the whole doctrine and discipline of the Church of England,and the Puritans,who,where not Nonconformists,were so Low Church as to approximate nearer to them than to any other party within or without its pale.Bacon urged toleration on both parties as well as upon the King.The irreconcilability of Cartwright and his followers tended to change Bacon’s views somewhat,causing him to lean in the future rather to the Erastian than the Nonconformist side.His opinions on this topic may be read in his Essay “On Unity in Religion.” It is significant that as the paper originally appeared in 1612 it was entitled “On Religion,” and dealt more with doctrine than divisions.His experiences at this stage and later in the reign led him to rank“unity” as one of the cardinal doctrines in religion,so much so that in the 1625 draft of the Essay in question he felt compelled to add the following sentences:“Religion being,the chief band at human society,it is a nappy thing when itself is well contained within the true band of unity…nothing doth so much keep men out of the Church and drive men out of the Church as breach of unity.” Also in the Essays “On Atheism” and “On Superstition” he refers to religious divisions,their causes and their effects,in terms that show how correctly he gauged the extent of the mischief they wrought.

Bacon also advocated at first the adoption of a via media with reference to the great controversy regarding the ius divinum,otherwise the respective limits of the royal prerogative and of popular privilege—a controversy which,commencing in the reign of James,culminated in the Civil War and the execution of Charles I.The dispute,however,started so many side issues,that insensibly Bacon was led to modify his tolerant liberalism until he could actually affirm from his place in Parliament:“The King holdeth not his prerogative of any kind from the law,but immediately from God as he holdeth his Crown.” In his Essay “On Empire” he makes an observation somewhat analogous:“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 comprehended in those two remembrances:‘Memento quod es homo’ and ‘Memento,quod es Deus,’ or ‘vice Dei’;the one bridleth their power and the other their will.”

Despite all these engrossments his literary activity was not allowed to slacken.Every moment of his time that could be spared from Parliament and the Law Courts was devoted to the pursuit of letters.In 1609 the “Wisdom of the Ancients” appeared,in which he explains the classic fables and mythology on allegorical principles;while new editions of his “Essays” were published in 1607 and 1612.The latter was designated a revised edition,many of the papers being rewritten.Several new Essays also were added,bringing the total number up to thirty-eight.

Sir Robert Cecil.Bacon’s cousin,who had recent]y been created Earl of Salisbury,died somewhat suddenly in 1612.Among the Essays recently added to his collection had been one on “Deformity,”in which he was supposed to have sketched his relative’s character to the life.Bacon made a bold bid to the King for the dead man’s place,offering,as he said,“to manage parliaments and to obtain supplies without concerting undignified bargains as Salisbury had done.” James did not accept the offer:perhaps,a little apprehensive as to what lengths the applicant’s ideas on toleration might lead him,In his desire to secure the office of “Master of the Wards” also,Bacon was fated to suffer disappointment.In 1613,however,he was consoled with the long-sighed-for Attorney-Generalship.The Essay “on Great Place” is certainly Written out of the fulness of his own weary experience,especially the sentence:“The rising into Place is laborious,and by pains men come to greater pains,and it is sometimes base;and by indignities men come to dignities,etc..”

Previous to this,he had been appointed president of a new Court called “The Verge,” instituted to deal directly with offences committed within a range of twelve miles around the Hinges residence in London.His opening charge is remarkable for the earnestness wherewith he condemns “Duelling” as a national crime—“Life is grown too cheap in these times.” He cries indignantly.When he became Attorney-General he went further,and proposed that the offender-whether by sending or accepting a challenge,or even acting as second—should be permanently banished from the Court.The “Addled Parliament” saw the extinction of Bacon’s political influence.Its dissolution in 1614 and the estranged relations ensuing between.King and Commons,during the time when Parliament was unconvoked,entailed the destruction of that feeling of mutual sympathy arising from identity of interests,which Bacon had long striven to foster between the “first” and the “third” Estates of the realm.The Essay on “Seditious and Troubles” deals characteristically with this question among others.

At this time Bacon showed his keen prevision and skill in reading the signs of the times,by severing the ties of friendship binding him to the King’s “reigning” favourite—Robert Carr.Earl of Somerset—and espousing the cause of the rising one—George Viliers,afterwards Duke of Buckingham.His foresight was justified.Somerset fell along with his Countess,both steeped in the infamy of the Overbury murder;Villiers rose like a rocket over the ruined splendour of his predecessor,being materially assisted by Bacon in the early stages of his upward course.Bacon’s allusion to royal“favourites” in his Essay on “Ambition” is esteemed to refer to James’s partiality for them.With characteristic servility he so far palliates the practice with the words:“It is counted by some a weakness in princes to have favourites;but it is of all others the best remedy against ambitious great ones.”

Whatever services Bacon rendered,Buckingham amply repaid them,in exerting his influence to procure rapid promotion for him.In June 1616 Bacon was sworn in of the Privy Council,and in March 1617,on the retirement of Lord Brackley,he was appointed Keeper of the Great Seal.The address delivered by him before his Court on taking his seat was characterized by lofty nobility of sentiment and dignified oratory.On the official ladder only one step now remained for him to mount,and that one he was not long in ascending.In January 1618 he was appointed Lord Chancellor of England.Other honours were showered on him.In July of the same year he was raised to the peerage as Lord Verulam,the designation being taken from the Latin name of St.Albans,near which town his estate of Gorhambury was situated.

Possessed now of a very large income,he maintained great power and state in his household arrangements.January 1620 saw him entering his 60th year,and he celebrated the occasion at York House by a gathering of his friends,whose congratulations he received with manifest pleasure.Ben Jonson was of the party,and commemorated the scene in lines at once flattering and felicitous.In October 1620 he published the Novum Organum,or the New Insrument for the Interpretation of Nature and the Discovery of Truth—a volume which,in the words of Macaulay,drew forth the warmest expressions of admiration from the ablest men in Europe;while a further honour was conferred on him in January of the succeeding year,when he was created Viscount St.Albans.

This brought him to the pinnacle of his career.Honours.dignities,wealth,praise,public esteem,all were his.But,alas,with his sense of these,there must have been the humiliating consciousness of shameful acts of tyranny committed at instigation of James and Buckingham.He consented to the death of Raleigh—the greatest Englishman of his age next to Shakespeare and himself;he deserted his own friend,Attorney.General Yelverton,when the latter was tried for inserting unauthorised clauses in the charter of the City of London;he supported the Spanish alliance,when he had already advocated a treaty,offensive and defensive,with the Netherlands,and although he knew the heart of the nation loathed everything associated with Spain;he approved of oppressive“Monopolies” by which the people were unjustly taxed,and he permitted Buckingham to influence the course of justice in the Chancery Courts.There is a passage in his Essay “On Negociating beginning:“It is better dealing with men in appetite than with those that are where they would be.If a man deal with another upon conditions,the start or first performance is all,” et seq.,which seems to be written with designed obscurity,yet which is undoubtedly a protest against the degrading servility he had been obliged all his life to display,first towards the Cecils and then towards James and his favourites.

But the day of reckoning,if long delayed,came at last.Parliament,after being unsummoned from 1614 to 1621,had at length to be convoked,and among the first acts of the Commons was to table a demand for reform in connection with the oppressive Monopoly-patents,under cover of which Buckingham and his creatures had pillaged the nation.From these,instigated by Bacon’s enemy,Coke,whose dismissal from the Chief-Justiceship of the Queen’s Bench he had effected during his Attorney-Generalship,the Commons passed on to criticise the state of the Courts of Justice,and direct charges of accepting bribes were tabulated against the Chancellor.Bacon,scenting mischief in Coke’s attitude,tried to urge the King to resistance with words that read strangely prophetic of the fate of Charles I,eight and twenty years thereafter:“Those that will strike at your Chancellor,it is much to be feared will strike at your Crown.”

But all was in vain.The King could do nothing beyond imprisoning coke,for Bacon had practically no defence to offer.The evidence against him was overwhelming.Yet this was the man who in his Essay “On Judicature” had expressed such lofty sentiments on the necessity for unbiassed justice.The whole paper is his condemnation,but more especially these sentences:Above all things integrity is their (judges’) portion and proper virtue… one foul sentence doth more hurt than many foul examples,for these do but corrupt the stream,the other corrupteth the fountain… The place of justice is a hallowed place,and therefore not only the bench but the footpace and precincts and purprise thereof ought to be preserved without scandal and corruption.”

The Chancellor at last came to recognise his case as hopeless,and probably under the influence of feelings such as he describes in his Essay “On Wisdom for a Man’s Self,” which contains obvious references to the relations formerly existing between the King,Buckingham,and himself-for the practice of bribe-taking was general,from the King on the throne to the lowest lackey in his service—he wrote a letter throwing himself on the mercy of his peers,evidently hoping that James and Buckingham would save him to save themselves.The epistle manifests a strange mingling of pathos and petulance,of noble aspirations after greater purity in“the fount of justice” with ignoble aspersions on those who assailed him.

But what he had caused Yelverton to suffer he was now to suffer himself.He was left to his fate,although it is hard to see how James could have moved in the matter.The sentence pronounced upon the Lord Chancellor was that he be fined 40,000,imprisoned in the Tower during the King’s pleasure,declared incapable of holding office in the State or of sitting in Parliament,and that he should not come within the verge of the Court.No sooner,however,was the sentence pronounced than it was mitigated by royal order;he was released from the Tower and retired to Gorhambury.Thereafter the fine was remitted and the prohibition against his presence at Court revoked,but the bar against sitting in Parliament was never removed.

From a literary and philosophical point of view the last period of Bacon’s life was the most glorious.“The virtue of Prosperity is temperance;the virtue of Adversity fortitude,which in morals is the more heroical virtue.Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament;adversity is the blessing of the New,which carrieth,the greater benediction and the clearer revelation of God’s favour.” These sentences,written after his fall,show the effect it had produced upon him.By no student of Bacon’s works can this Essay “On Adversity be read without emotion.Smarting under his disgrace,Bacon turned with eagerness to the intellectual pursuits his official duties had interrupted.In profound study he found an anodyne,and his delight in such labours is finely reflected in his Essay “Of Nature in Men.”

His activity was phenomenal.Five months after his fall he completed his History of Henry VII.,which received the praise of Grotius and Locke as a model of philosophical history-writing;he began his History of Henry VIII.,sketched the outline of his History of Great Britain,made notes for his Digest of the Laws of England and Scotland,and prepared his Dialogue on the Sacred War.In 1623 appeared the De Augmentis,the Latin translation with expansion of the Advancement of Learning,and his unfinished philosophical romance “New Atlantis,” designed as a half-practical,half-poetical suggestion of a College of Thinkers,partially realised afterwards in the Royal Society.Not the least important work was the final revision of his famous Essays,with as many new papers added as raised the total number to fifty-eight.This was his last literary undertaking,and was published a few months before his death.

For some time he had been growing increasingly feeble;yet he did not remit his labours.He died indeed a singular martyr to science.On a bitterly cold day he descended from his carriage,purchased a fowl,killed it,and with his own hands stuffed it with snow,to see if cold would prove an agent in arresting putrefaction.Scarcely was this done,than he felt a chill striking through his system.Too ill to return home,he was carried to the house of Lord Arundel,where,exactly a week later,on April 9,1626,he passed peacefully away.He was buried,as he desired,near his mother,in the Church of St Michael,St.Albans.

Bacon was intellectually great,but morally weak.His marvellous versatility renders it difficult to present a critical estimate which embraces all the varied aspects of his personality,as lawyer,politician,scientist,philosopher,historian and essayist.In theology and in church politics he was a curious investigator too,while the ambiguous phrase,“be kind to concealed poets”—a phrase on which the Bacon-Shakespeare theory has laid stress—raises the suspicion that he wooed the muse in more ways than that shown in the two or three masques he wrote.In a word,he took all knowledge for his province.

Bacon’s philosophical “system,” which is to be studied in his Advancement of Learning,the De Augmentis,and the Novum Organum,may be said to aim primarily at a review,classification,and methodisation of all knowledge.To speak of him as formulating a system,or as founding a “school,” is erroneous.He who only builds the porch cannot be said to have erected a mansion.Comprehensive though his intellect was,he had diffused his energies over so many fields that in his own half-sad,half-humorous saying,“he had done nothing more than to ring the bell to call the wits together.”

Now about the “Essays.” No one can study them with care without discovering that every paper is the fruit of his own experience,distilled through the alembic of his marvellous mind.There is scarcely a single Essay which,in some sentence or another,does not point its affirmations and conclusions by some subtle reference,expressed or understood,to his own life.It is one of the few volumes that may be designated “world-books”—books that are more cosmopolitan than patriotic,adapted not to an age but to all time.In it,supreme intellectual force is united to Protean variety of interests and sympathies.All types and temperaments of humanity may find some affinity to themselves therein.Easy would it have been for Bacon to make his volume merely a study of English traits,of local men and manners,like Hall’s Characterismes,or Overbury’s Characters,or Earle’s Microcos-mographie.In that case,however,none but Englishmen could have adequately entered into its spirit and sentiments.But now,its sphere of influence is well-nigh coterminous with the world’s boundaries,since none can fall to enjoy where all are able to understand.

The Essays of Francis Bacon,in the form or text now presented to our readers,may be said to have passed through three distinct stages of evolution,represented by the editions of 1597,1612,and 1625.Numbering at first only ten papers,as we have seen (the volume being eked ont with “Religious Meditations”),they were increased to thirty-eight in 1612.The original Essays having been thoroughly revised and in many cases rewritten.From then until the year before his death,when they were issued in their final form and number—fifty-eight—Bacon kept the book constantly beside him,adding,altering,compressing,or expanding as he saw fit.Some of the early Essays passed through many drafts.As his opinions suffered modification through the incidents and accidents of life,so the sentiments expressed in the Essays had to be changed.The papers“On Suitors,” “On Faction,” and “On Friendship” were altered very materially during the course of the editions,the last-named one being entirely rewritten in view of the issue of 1625.

From the first,their popularity was great.Their brevity was a recommendation to readers with limited leisure,their compactness of thought and conciseness of expression a virtue,passing meritorious,in an age when looseness alike in thought and language was the rule rather than the exception,While the Essays may not,as a whole,display the stately music of Donne or of Hooker.the florid ornateness of Burton or of Browne,the sustained grandeur of Johnson—a grandeur at times verging on or of Hooker.the florid ornateness of Burton or of Browne,the sustained grandeur of Johnson—a grandeur at times verging on grandiloquence—or the sinewy flexibility of Selden,they unite in themselves a portion of the excellences of all the six.The qualities of his age—the word-painting of Jacobean diction,the involution of thought even beyond the border line of conceits,the quaint humour and the sparkling wit,all have their place in the Essays.The sharp,antithetic form in which be elected to present his thoughts in the earlier essays necessarily contributed as much to the pregnancy of their matter as to the epigrammatic precision of their manner.While some of the earlier Essaysread,in places,like extracts from the Book of Proverbs,others among the later ones exhibit all the brightness,the colour,and the vivid wordpainting of Sidney’s Arcadia or Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Living.As an example of the first-named type,we select at random from the Essay“On Studies” the following sentences:“To spend too much time on studies is sloth;to use them too much for ornament is affectation…Crafty men contemn studies,simple men admire them,and wise men use them;” and from the Essay “On Suitors” the following:“To be ignorant of the value of a suit is simplicity;as well as to be ignorant of the right thereof,is want of conscience.” Now contrast with the antithetic compactness,almost reaching baldness,characteristic of both the aforementioned papers,the wealth of diction and felicitous power of description displayed in the Essays “On Building” and“On Gardens.” A passage like this comes to one like the breath of a cool mountain breeze amid the sultry stillness of a midsummer’s afternoon:“Because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air(where it comes and goes like the warbling of music) than in the hand,therefore nothing is more fit for that delight than to know what be the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air… Of bean flowers I speak not,because they are field flowers;but those which perfume the air most delightfully,not passed by as the rest,but being trodden upon and crushed,are three;that is,burnet,wild thyme,and water-mints;therefore,you are to set whole alleys of them,to have the pleasure when you walk or tread.”

As one of the world’s epoch-making books,Bacon’s Essays have done much to mould and direct the character of many individuals.With Montaigne’s Essays they almost inevitably challenged comparison,inasmuch as only some seventeen years separated the publication of their first editions.Montaigne’s Essays appeal to broader social sympathies and cover a larger area of human action,as the sphere of their observation and criticism.But we miss the firm intellectual grip,the bone and sinew of compact thought,the comprehensive survey over the entire domain of knowledge,the almost preternatural acumen displayed in detecting far-reaching analogies,and the polymathic acquaintance with the entire range of the learning of his age,evinced by Bacon.He lacked Montaigne’s lightness of touch and piquant picturesqueness in stating obvious truths so as to make them look like new;while Montaigne in turn was entirely destitute of the great English Essayist’s marvellous penetration into the very soul of things,and of his superb ratiocinative faculty.If Montaigne were the greater literary artist,Bacon was the pro- founder moral and intellectual force.

That Bacon had read Montaigne when the first book of the latter’s Essays was published in 1580 is strongly probable,though he does not personally mention him until 1625.Both Essayist have treated several topics in common.Bacon has an Essay “On Ceremonies and Respects,” Montaigne one “On Ceremonies in the Interview of Kings”;both writers have an Essay “On Friendship”;Bacon writes on “Vain Glory,” Montaigne on “Glory” and on“Vanity”;Bacon treats of “Studies,” and Montaigne of “Books,” but the subject under discussion in both is,much the same.Bacon in his Essay on “Friendship” says,“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 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.”On the same question Montaigne says to us,through the translation of John Florio:“There is nothing to which Nature hath more addressed us than to Societie.And Aristotle saith that perfect Lawgivers have had more regardful care of friendship than of justice.And the utmost drift of its perfection is this.For generally all those amities which are forged and nourished by voluptuousness or profit,publike or private need,are thereby so much the less faire and generous,and so much the lesse true amities,in that they intermeddle other causes,scope and fruit with friendship,than itself alone.”

Further,Bacon’s Essays,viewed in their entirety,may be said to group themselves round three great principles.These are:(1) Man in his relations to the World and Society;(2) Man in his relations to himself;(3) Man in his relations to his Maker.These divisions cannot be said to be altogether mutually exclusive.Some of the Essays,therefore,may be ranked under more than one of the headings.But this basis of division enables us to attempt some sort of classification,in accordance with which the Essays may be methodically studied in closely allied groups.

The first-named class is of course the largest,including as it does the relations of mankind to the physical world and also those mutual relations constituting Society as a whole.As representative of the papers that would fall under this category may be named those on “Seditions and Troubles,” “Great Place,” “Empire,” “Friendship,“Plantations,” “Parents and Children,” “Building,” “Gardens,“Suitors,” “Judicature,” “Discourse,” “Faction,” etc.

Under the second group would be ranked the papers dealing with Man the individual,in his intellectual and moral relations.The Essays regarded as representative of this class would be such as:“Regiment of Health,” “Studies,” “Ambition,” “Wisdom for Man’s Self,” “Seeming Wise,” “Adversity,” “Revenge,” “Honour and Reputation,” “Deformity.” etc.

Under the third heading,Man’s relation to his Maker and the Unseen World,such papers as these would be ranked:“Death,“Unity in Religion,” “Atheism,” “Superstition,” “Prophecies,“Nature in Men,” “Goodness,” etc.

Finally,Bacon’s Essays are the work of a man who,in precept,at least,had a deep reverence for moral principle.None other than one entertaining such sentiments could have said as he has done:“A man that hath no virtue in himself ever envieth virtue in others.“Power to do good is the true and lawful end of aspiring.for good thoughts (though God accept them) yet towards men are little better than good dreams,except they be put in act;” and “The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall;the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall;but in charity (goodness) there is no excess,neither can angel or man come in danger by it.” The writer of these Essays was also a man who theoretically cherished a profound love and respect for justice:“The principal duty of a judge is to suppress force and fraud;” “Let no man weakly conceive that just laws and true policy have any antipathy,for they are like the spirits and sinews that one moves with the other;” “Suspicions amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds;they ever fly by twilight.They dispose kings to tyranny,husbands to jealousy,wise men to irresolution and melancholy.”

Bacon.moreover,always maintains the Sanctity of Truth alike in scientific investigation and the intercourse of life:“Truth which only doth judge itself,teacheth that the enquiry of truth which is the love-making or wooing of it.the knowledge,of truth which is the presence of it,and the belief of truth which is the enjoying of it,is the sovereign good of human nature;” or in truth which is the love-making or wooing of it,the knowledge of truth which is the presence of it,and the belief of truth which is the enjoying of it,is the sovereign good of human nature;” or in moral conduct:“It is heaven upon earth to have a man’s mind move in charity,rest in providence,and turn upon the poles of truth.”

And so we leave Francis Bacon! Had he left us no other literary legacy than those wonderful Essays,he would have established claim upon the gratitude,not alone of his fellow-countrymen,but of his fellow-men—a claim the years will ever strengthen and time will aye confirm!

The following list gives the chief editions of Bacon’s works:—

Essays,1597;2nd Edition.1598;3rd Edition,1606;5th Edition,newly written,1625.

Advancement of Learning,1605,1629,1633.

De Sapientia Veterum,1609,1617,1633,1634.

The Wisdome of the Ancients,done into English by Sir A.G.Knight,1619.1658.

(The) New Atlantis,1660.

Novum Organum,1620,I645.

Life of Henry VII.,1622,1629.

De Augmentis Scientiarum,1623,163S,1645,expanded from the Advancement of Learning,translated in Latin under the supervision of Bacon.

Apophthegmes,New and Old,1624 [B.M.1625].

Sylva Sylvarum,published after the author’s death by W.Rawley,1627,1635.COLLECTED WORKS

Opera omnia quae extant.Philosophica,Moralia Politica,Historica,1665.

Opera Omnia.Life of Francis Bacon,by Dr.Rawley.Edited by J.Blackbourne,1730.

Bacon’s works,with Life,Mallet’s,174o and 1753.Montagu’s,l7 vols.,1825–1826.

Works,originally collected and revised by R.Stephens and J.Locker,published after their deaths by T.Birch,5 vols.,1765.

Works,collected and edited by J.Spedding,R.L.Ellis and D.D.Heath,14 vols.,1857–1874.

To the Right Honourable my very good lord the Duke of Buckingham his Grace,Lord High Admiral of England

EXCELLENT LORD—Solomon says:a good name is as a precious ointment;and I assure my self,such will your Grace’s name be,with posterity.For your fortune,and merit both,have been eminent.And you have planted things,that are like to last I do now publish my essays;which,of all my other 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 Instaration,I dedicated to the King:my History of Henry 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 servantFRANCIS ST ALBAN

1 Of Studies

Studies serve for delight,for ornament,and for ability.Their chief use for delight,is in privateness and retiring;for ornament,is in discourse;and for ability,is in the judgement and disposition of business.For expert men can execute,and perhaps judge of particulars,one by one;but the general counsels,and the plots,and marshalling of affairs,come best from those that are learned.To spend too much time in studies,is sloth;to use them too much for ornament,is affectation;to make judgement wholly by their rules is the humour of a scholar.They perfect nature,and are perfected by experience:for natural abilities are like natural plants,that need pruning by study:and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large,except they be bounded in by experience.Crafty men condemn studies;simple men admire them;and wise men use them:for they teach not their own use;but that is a wisdom without them,and above them,won by observation.Read not to contradict,and confute;nor to believe and take for granted;nor to find talk and discourse;but to weigh and consider.Some books are to be tasted,others to be swallowed,and some few to be chewed and digested:that is,some books are to be read only in parts;others to be read but not curiously;and some few to be read wholly,and with diligence and attention.Some books also may be read by deputy,and extracts made of them by others:but that would be,only in the less important arguments,and the meaner sort of book:else distilled

books are like common distilled waters,flashy things.Reading maketh a full man;conference a ready man;and writing an exact man.And therefore,if a man write little,he had need have a great memory;if he confer little,he had need have a present wit;and if he read little,he had need have much cunning,to seem to know that he doth not.Histories make men wise;poets witty;the mathematics subtle;natural philosophy deep;moral grave;logic and rhetoric able to contend.Abeunt studia in mores.Nay,there is no stond or impediment in the wit,but may be wrought out by fit studies:like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises.Bowling is good for the stone and reins;shooting for the lungs and breast;gentle walking for the stomach;riding for the head;and the like.So if a man’s wit be wandering,let him study the mathematics;for in demonstrations,if his wit be called away never so little,he must begin again:if his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences,let him study the schoolmen;for they are cymini sectores.If he be not apt to beat over matters,and to call up one thing,to prove and illustrate another,let him study the lawyers’ cases:so every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.

2 Of Truth

What is truth;said jesting Pilate;and would not stay for an answer.Certainly there be,that delight in giddiness;and count it a bondage,to fix a belief,affecting free-will in thinking,as well as in acting.And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone,yet there remain certain discoursing wits,which are of the same veins,though there be not so much blood in them,as was in those of the ancients.But it is not only the difficulty,and labour,which men take in finding out of truth;nor again,that when it is found,it imposeth upon men’s thoughts;that doth bring lies in favour:but a natural,though corrupt love,of the lie itself.One of the later school of the Grecians,examineth the matter,and is at a stand,to think what should be in it,that men should love lies;where neither they make for pleasure,as with poets;nor for advantage,as with me merchant;but for the lie’s sake.But I cannot tell:this same truth,is a naked,and open day light,that doth not show,the masques,and mummeries,and triumphs of the world,half so stately,and daintily,as candlelights.Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl,that showeth best by day:but it will not rise,to me price of a diamond,or carbuncle,that showeth best in varied lights.A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure.Doth any man doubt,that if there were taken out of men’s minds,vain opinions,nattering 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 of the fathers,in great severity,called poesy,vinum daemonum;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 spoke of before.But howsoever these things are thus,in men’s depraved judgements,and affections,yet truth,which only doth judge itself,teacheth,that the inquiry of truth,which is the love-making,or wooing of it;the knowledge of truth,which is the presence of it;and the belief of truth,which is the enjoying of it;is the sovereign good of human nature.The first creature of God,in the 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 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 beautified the sect,that was otherwise inferior to the rest,saith yet excellently well:‘It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore,and to see ships tossed upon the sea:a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle,and to see a battle,and the adventures thereof,below:but no pleasure is comparable,to the standing,upon the vantage ground of truth.’ (a hill not to be commanded,and where the air is always clear and serene;) ‘and to see the errors,and wanderings,and mists,and tempests,in the vale below.’ So always,that this prospect,be with pity,and not with swelling,or pride.Certainly,it is heaven upon earth,to have a man’s mind move in charity,rest in providence,and turn upon the poles of truth.

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 dealing is the honour of man’s nature;and that mixture of falsehood,is like allay in coin of gold and silver,which may make the metal work the better,but it embaseth it.For these winding and crooked courses,are the goings of the serpent;which goeth basely upon the belly,and not upon the feet There is no vice,that doth so cover a man with shame,as to be found false,and perfidious.And therefore Mountaigny saith prettily,when he enquired the reason,why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace,and such an odious charge? saith he,‘If it be well weighed,to lay that a man lieth,is as much to say,as that he is brave towards God,and a coward towards men.’ For a lie faces God,and shrinks from man.Surely the wickedness of falsehoods,and breach of faith,cannot possibly be so highly expressed,as in that it shall be the last peal,to call the judgements of God upon the generations of men,it being foretold,that when Christ cometh.He shall not find faith upon the earth.

3 Of Death

Men fear death,as children fear to go in the dark:and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales,so is the other.Certainly,the contemplation of death,as the wages of sin,and passage to another world,is holy and religious;but the fear of it,as a tribute due unto nature,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 mortifications,that a man should think with himself,what the pain is,if he have but his finger’s end pressed,or tortured;and thereby imagine,what the pains of death are,when the whole body is corrupted and dissolved;when many times,death passeth with less pain,then the torture of a limb:for the most vital parts are not the quickest of sense.And by him,that spoke only as a philosopher and natural man,it was well said;pompa mortis magis terret,quam mars ipsa.Groans and convulsions,and a discoloured face,and friends weeping,and blacks,and obsequies,and the like,show death terrible.It is worthy the observing,that there is no passion in 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 flieth to it;fear preoccupieth 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;cogita quarn diu.eadem feceris;mori velle,non tantun fortis,out miser,sed etiam fastidiosus potest.A man would die,though he were neither valiant,nor miserable,only upon a weariness to do the same thing,so oft over and over.It is no less worthy to observe,how little alteration,in good spirits,die approaches of death make;for they appear to be the same men,till the last instant Augustus Caesar died in a compliment;Livia,coniugii nostri memor,vive et vale.Tiberius in dissimulation;as Tacitus saith of him;iam Tiberium vires,et corpus,non dissimulatio,deserebant.Vespasian in a jest;sitting upon the stool,ut puto deus fio.Galba with a sentence;feri,si ex re sit populi Romani,holding forth his neck.Septimius Severus in dispatch;adeste,si quid mihi restat agendum.And the like.Certainly,the Stoics bestowed too much cost upon death,and by their great preparations,made it appear more fearful.Better saith he,qui finem vitae extremism inter munera ponat naturae.It is as natural to die,as to be born;and to a little infant,perhaps,the one is as 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 me dolours of death:but above all,believe it,the sweetest 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.—exstinctus amabitur idem.

4 Of Unity in Religion

Religion being the chief band of human society,it is a happy thing,when itself is well contained within the true band of unity.The quarrels,and divisions about religion,were evils unknown to the heathen.The reason was,because the religion of the heathen consisted rather in rites and ceremonies than in any constant belief.For you may imagine,what kind of faith theirs was,when the chief doctors,and fathers of their church,were the poets.But the true God haul this attribute,that he is a jealous God;and therefore,his worship and religion 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 means?

The fruits of unity (next unto the well pleasing of God,which is all in all) are two;me 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 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,and drive men out of the church,as breach of unity:and therefore,whensoever it cometh to that pass,that one saith,ecce in deserto;another saith,ecce in penetralibus;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 in men’s ears,nolite exire,go not out.The doctor of the gentiles (the propriety of whose vocation drew him to have a special care of those without) saith:If an heathen come in and hear you speak with several tongues will he not say that you are mad? And certainly,it is little better when atheists,and profane persons,do hear of so many discordant and contrary opinions in religion;it doth avert them from the church,and maketh them to sit down in the chair of the scorners.It is but a light thing,to be vouched in so serious a matter,but yet it expresseth 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 moms dance of heretics.For indeed,every sect of them hath a diverse posture,or cringe by themselves,which cannot but move derision in worldlings,and depraved politics,who are apt to contemn holy things.

As for the fruit towards those that are within;it is peace;which containe infinite blessings:it establisheth faith;it kindleth charity;the outward peace of the church distilleth into peace of conscience;and it turneth the labours of writing,and reading of controversies,into treaties of mortification,and devotion.

Concerning the bounds of unity;the true placing of them importeth exceedingly.There appear to be two extremes.For to certain zealants all speech of pacification is odious.Is it peace,Jehu? What hast thou to do with peace? Turn thee behind me.Peace is not the matter,but following and party.Contrariwise,certain Laodiceans,and lukewarm persons,think they may accommodate points of religion by middle ways,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 and plainly expounded;he that is not with us,is against us;and again,he that is not against us is with us:that is,if the points fundamental and of substance in religion were truly discerned and distinguished from points not merely of faith,but of opinion,order,or good intention.This is a thing may seem to many a matter trivial,and done already:but if it were done less partially,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 church,by two kinds of controversies.The one is,when the matter of me point controverted is too small and light,not worth the heat and strife about it,kindled only by contradiction.For,as it is noted by one of the fathers;‘Christ’s coat,indeed,had no seam:but the church’s vesture was of divers colours;’ whereupon he saith,in veste varietas sit,scissura non sit;they be two things,unity,and uniformity.The other is,when the matter of the point controverted is great,but it is driven to an over-great subtlety,and obscurity;so that it becometh a thing,rather ingenious,then substantial.A man that is of judgement 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 pass,in that distance of judgement 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 their contradictions,intend the same thing,and accepteth of both? The nature of such controversies is excellently expressed by St Paul,in the warning and precept that he giveth concerning the same,devita profanas vocum novitates,et oppositiones falsi nominis scientiae.Men create oppositions,which are not;and put them into new terms,so fixed,as whereas the meaning ought to govern the term,the term in effect govemeth 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:me other,when it is pieced up,upon a direct admission of contraries,in fundamental points.For truth and falsehood,in such things,are like the iron and clay in the toes of ebucadnezzar’s image;they may cleave,but they will not incorporate.

Concerning the means of procuring unity;men must 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 temporal;and both have their due office,and place,in the maintenance of religion.But we may not take up the third sword,which is Mohammed’s sword,or like unto it;that is,to propagate religion by wars,or by sanguinary prosecutions,to force consciences;except it be in cases of overt scandal,blasphemy,or intermixture of practice against the state;much less to nourish seditions;to authorise conspiracies and rebellions;to put the sword into the people’s hands;and the like;tending to the subversion of all government,which is the ordinance of God.For this is but to dash the first table against the second;and so to consider men as Christians,as we forget that they are men.Lucretius the poet,when he beheld the act of Agamemnon,that could endure the sacrificing of his own daughter,exclaimed:

tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.

What would he have said,if he had known of the massacre in France,or the powder treason of England? 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 unto the Anabaptists,and other furies.It was great blasphemy,when the devil said;I will ascend,and be like the highest;but it is greater blasphemy,to personate God,and bring him in saying;I will descend,and be like the Prince of Darkness;and what,is it better,to make the cause of religion to 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,in stead of the likeness of a dove,in the shape of a vulture,or raven:and to set,out of the bark of a Christian church,a flag of a barque of pirates,and assassins.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 mercury rod;do damn and send to Hell,for ever,those facts and opinions,tending to the support of me same;as hath been already in good part done.Surely in counsels concerning religion,that counsel of the apostle would be prefixed;ira hominis non implet justitiam dei.And it was a notable observation,of a wise father,and no less ingenuously confessed;that those,which held and persuaded pressure of consciences were commonly interested therein,themselves,for their own ends.

5 Of Revenge

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 doth but offend the law;but the revenge of that wrong,putteth the law out of office.Certainly,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 Solomon,I am sure,saith,It is the glory of a man to pass by an offence.That which is past,is gone,and irrevocable;and 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 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 which there is no law to remedy:but then,let a man take heed the revenge be such as there is no law to punish:else,a man’s enemy is still before hand,and it is two for one.Some,when they take revenge,are desirous the party should know whence it cometh:this is the more 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,against perfidious or neglecting friends,as if those wrongs were unpardonable:You shall read (saith he) that we are commanded to forgive our enemies;but you never read,that we are commanded to forgive our friends.But yet the spirit of Job,was in a better tune;Shall we (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 for the death of Caesar,for the death of Pertinax;for the death of Henry the Third of France;and many more.But in private revenges it is not so.Nay rather,vindictive persons live the life of witches;who as they are mischievous,so end they unfortunate.

6 Of Adversity

It was an high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics) that the good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished;but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.Bona rerum secundarum optabilia;adversarum mirabilia.Certainly if miracles be the command over nature,they appear most in adversity.It is yet a higher speech of his than the other (much too high for a heathen):It is true greatness to have in one the fragility of a man and the security of a God.Vere magnum habere fragilitaterm hominis securitatem dei.This would have done better in poesy;where transcendencies are more allowed.And the poets indeed,have been busy with it;for it is,in effect,the thing which is figured in that strange fiction of the ancient poets,which seemeth not to be without mystery;nay,and to have some approach to the state of a Christian:that Hercules when he went to unbind Prometheus (by whom human nature is represented) sailed the length of the great ocean in an earthen pot or pitcher:lively describing Christian resolution;that saileth,in the frail barque of the flesh,through the waves of the world.But to speak in a mean.The virtue of prosperity is temperance;the virtue of adversity is fortitude:which in morals is the more heroical virtue.Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament;adversity is the blessing of 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 hearselike airs,as carols:and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more,in describing the afflictions of Job,than the felicities of Solomon.Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes;and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.We see in needlework,and embroideries,it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground,than to have a dark and melancholy work,upon a lightsome 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 best discover virtue.

7 Of Simulation & Dissimulation

Dissimulation is but a faint kind of policy,or wisdom;for it asketh a strong wit,and a strong heart,to know when to tell truth,and to do it Therefore it is the weaker sort of politics,that are the great dissemblers.

Tacitus saith;Livia sorted well,with the arts of her husband,and dissimulation of her son:attributing arts or policy to Augustus,and dissimulation to Tiberius.And again,when Lucianus encourageth Vespasian,to take arms against Vitellius,he saith;We rise not,against the piercing judgment of Augustus,nor the extreme caution or closeness of Tiberius.These properties of arts or policy,and dissimulation or closeness,are indeed habits and faculties,several,and to be distinguished.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 showed at half lights,and to whom,and when (which indeed are arts of state,and arts of life,as Tacitus well calleth them),to him,a habit of dissimulation is a hindrance,and a poorness.But if a 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 the ablest men that ever were,have had all an openness,and frankness of dealing;and a name of certainty,and veracity;but then they were like horses,well managed;for they could tell passing well when to stop,or turn:and at such times,when they thought the case indeed required dissimulation,if then they used it,it came to pass,that the former opinion,spread abroad of their good faith,and clearness of dealing,made them almost invisible.

There be three degrees,of this hiding and veiling of a man’s self.The first closeness,reservation,and secrecy;when a man leaveth himself without observation,or without hold to be taken,what he is.The second dissimulation,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,and expressly,feigns and pretends to be that he is not.

For the first of these,secrecy:it is indeed,the virtue of a confessor,and assuredly,the secret man heareth many confessions;for who will open himself to a blab or a babbler? But if a man be thought secret,it inviteth 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 minds.In few words,mysteries are due to secrecy.Besides (to say truth) nakedness is uncomely,as well in mind,as 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 commonly vain,and credulous withal.For he that talketh what he knoweth,will also talk what he knoweth not.Therefore set it down;that an habit of secrecy is both politic and moral.And in this part,it is good,that a man’s face give his tongue leave to speak.For the discovery 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.

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 indifferent carriage between both,and to be secret,without 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 equivocations,or oraculous speeches,they cannot hold out long.So that no man can be secret,except he give himself a little scope of dissimulation;which is,as it were,but the skirts or train of secrecy.

But for the third degree,which is simulation,and false profession;that I hold more culpable,and less politic;except it be in great and rare matters.And therefore a general custom of simulation(which is this last degree) is a vice,rising either of a natural falseness,or fearfulness;or of a mind,that hath some main faults;which because a man must needs disguise,it maketh him practise simulation in other things,lest his hand should be out of use.

The great advantages of simulation and dissimulation are three.First to lay asleep opposition,and to surprise.For where a man’s intentions are published,it 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 himself,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 be also three disadvantages,to set it even.The first,that simulation and dissimulation commonly cany 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 many that perhaps would otherwise cooperate 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 temperature 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.掌玺大臣男爵尼古拉·培根(1510—1579),弗朗西斯·培根的父亲。

8 Of Parents & Children

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 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 have sought to express the images of their minds where those of their bodies have failed:so the care of posterity is most in them that have no posterity.They that are the first raisers of their houses,are most indulgent towards their children;beholding them,as the continuance,not only of their kind,but of their work;and so both children and creatures.

The difference in affection of parents towards their several children is many times unequal;and sometimes unworthy;especially in the mother,as Solomon saith;A wise son rejoiceth the father,but an ungracious son shames the 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,nevertheless,prove the best.The illiberality of parents,in allowance towards their children,is an 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 authority towards their children,but not their purse.Men have a foolish manner (both parents,and schoolmasters,and servants) in creating and breeding an emulation between brothers,during childhood,which many times sorted to discord,when they are men;and disturbeth families.The Italians make little difference between children,and nephews,or near kinsfolk;but so they be of the lump,they care not,though they passe not through their own body.And,to say truth,in nature it is much a like matter,in so much,that we see a nephew sometimes resembleth an uncle,or a kinsman,more than his own parent;as the blood happens.Let parents choose betimes the vocations and courses they mean their children should take;for then they are most flexible;and let them not too much apply themselves to the disposition of their children,as thinking they will take best to that,which they have most mind to.It is true,that if the affection or aptness of the children be extraordinary,then it is good not to cross it;but generally,the precept is good;optimum elige,suave et facile illud faciet consuetudo.Younger brothers are commonly fortunate,but seldom or never where the elder are disinherited.爱丽丝·巴南。培根在45岁时娶市参事会参政员的女儿爱丽丝·巴南为妻。

9 Of Marriage & Single Life

He that hath wife and children,hath given hostages to fortune;for they are impediment to great enterprises,either of virtue,or mischief.Certainly,the best works,and of greatest merit for the public,have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men;which both in affection,and means,have married and endowed the public.Yet it were great reason,that those that have children,should have greatest care of future times;unto which,they know,they must transmit their dearest pledges.Some there are,who though they lead a single life,yet their thoughts do end with themselves,and account future times impertinences.Nay,there are some other,that account wife and children but as bills of charges.Nay more,there are some foolish rich covetous men,that take a pride in having no children,because they may be thought so much the richer.For perhaps,they have heard some talk;such a one is a great rich man;and another except to it;Yea,but he hath a great charge of children:as if it were an abatement to his riches.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.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 church men:for charity will hardly water the ground,where it must first fill a pool.

It is indifferent for judges and magistrates:for if they be facile,and corrupt,you shall have a servant five times worse than a wife.For soldiers,I find the generals commonly in their hortatives,put men in mind of their wives and children:and I think the despising of marriage amongst 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 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;vetulam suampraetulit immortalitati.Chaste women are often proud and forward,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 think her husband wise;which she will never do,if she find 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 many,when he will.But yet,he was reputed one of the wise men,that made answer to the question,when a man should marry? A young man not yet,an elder man not at all.It is often seen,that bad husbands have very good wives;whether it be,that it raiseth the price of their husband’s kindness,when it comes;or that the wives take a pride in their patience.But this never fails,if the bad husbands were of their own choosing,against their friends consent;for then,they will be sure to make good their own folly.

10 Of Envy

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 objects;which are the points that conduce to fascination,if any such thing there be.We see likewise,the scripture calleth envy an evil eye:and the astrologers call the evil influences of the stars,evil aspects;so that still,there seemeth to be acknowledged,in the act of envy,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 times,toe spirit of the person envied do come forth most into the outward parts,and so meet the blow.

But leaving these curiosities (though not unworthy,to be thought on,in fit place),we will handle,what persons are apt to envy others;what persons are most subject to be envied themselves;and,what is the difference between public and private envy.

A man that hath no virtue in himself,ever envieth virtue in others.For men’s minds will either feed upon their own good,or upon others’ evil;and who wanteth the one,will prey upon the other,and who so is out of hope to attain to another’s virtue,will seek to come at even hand,by depressing another’s fortune.

A man that is busy,and inquisitive,is commonly envious: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 much matter for envy.For envy is a gadding passion,and walketh the streets,and doth not keep home;non est curiosus,quin idem malevolus.

Men of noble birth are noted to be envious towards new men,when they rise.For the distance is altered;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;except these defects light upon a very brave and heroical nature;which thinketh to make his natural wants,part of his honour:in that it should be said,that an eunuch,or a lame man,did such great matters;affecting the honour of a miracle;as it was in Narses the eunuch,and Agesilaus,and Tamberlanes,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.

They that desire to excel in too many matters,out of levity and vain glory,are ever envious;for they cannot want work;it being impossible,but many,in some one of those things,should surpass them.Which was the character of Hadrian the Emperor,that mortally envied poets,and painters,and artificers,in works wherein he had a vein to excel.

Lastly,near kinsfolk,and fellows in office,and those that have been 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 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 look on.Thus much for those that are apt to envy.

Concerning those that are more or less subject to envy:first,persons of eminent virtue,when they are advanced,are less envied.For their fortune seemeth but due unto them;and no man envieth me payment of a debt,but 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 in,and afterwards overcome it better;whereas contrariwise,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.

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 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,cares,or perils,are less subject to envy.For men think,that they earn their honours hardly,and pity them sometimes;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 themselves,what a life they lead;chanting a quanta patimur.Not that they feel it so,but only to abate the edge of envy.But this is to be understood,of business that is laid upon men,and not such as they call unto themselves.For nothing increaseth envy more,than an unnecessary 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-eminence of their places.For by that means,there be so many screens between him and envy.

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 triumphing over all opposition,or competition;whereas 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 arrogance,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.

Lastly,to conclude this part;as we said in the beginning,that the act of envy,had somewhat in it,of witchcraft;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 somebody,upon whom to derive the envy,that would come upon themselves;sometimes upon ministers,and servants;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 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 also to great ones,to keep them within bounds.

This envy,being in the Latin word invidia,goeth in the modem languages,by the name of discontentment:of which we shall speak in handling sedition.It is a disease,in a stale,like to infection.For as infection 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 weakness,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 beat chiefly upon principal officers,or ministers,rather than upon kings,and 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 estate itself.And so much of 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,and continual.For of other affections,mere is occasion given,but now and then:and therefore,it was well said,invidia festos dies non agit.For it is ever working upon some or other.And it is also noted,that love and envy do make a man pine.Which other affections do not;because 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 amongst the wheat by night.As it always cometh to pass,that envy worketh subtly,and in the dark;and to the prejudice of good things,such as is the wheat.

11 Of Love

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 great and worthy persons (whereof the memory remaineth,either ancient or recent) there is not one,that hath been transported to the mad degree of love:which shows,that great spirits,and great business,do keep out this weak passion.You must except,nevertheless,Marcus Antonius the half partner of the empire of Rome;and Appius Claudius the decemvir,and lawgiver: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 love can find entrance,not only into an open heart;but also into a heart well fortified,if watch be not well kept.It is a poor saying of Epicurus,satis magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus:as if man,made for the contemplation of heaven and all noble objects,should do nothing,but kneel before a little idol,and make himself subject,though not of the mouth (as beasts are) yet of the eye;which was given him for higher purposes.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-flatterer,with whom all the petty flatterers have intelligence,is a man’s self;certainly,the lover is more.For there was never proud man thought so absurdly well of himself,as the lover doth of me person loved:and therefore,it was well said;that it is impossible to love,and to 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 reciproque,or with an inward and secret contempt.By 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 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 adversity;though this latter hath been less observed.Both which times kindle love,and make it more fervent,and therefore show 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 business,it troubleth men’s fortunes,and maketh men,that they can no ways be true to their own ends.I know not how,but martial men are given to love:I think it is,but as they are given to wine;for perils commonly ask to be paid in pleasures.There is in man’s nature,a secret inclination,and 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.

12 Of Great Place

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 strange desire,to seek power,and to lose liberty;or to seek power over others,and to lose power over a man’s self.The rising unto place is laborious;and by pains men come to greater pains;and it is sometimes base;and by indignities,men come to dignities.The standing is slippery,and the regress is either a downfall,or at least an eclipse,which is a melancholy thing.Cum non sis,qui fueris,non esse,curvelis vivere.Nay,retire men cannot,when they would;neither will they,when it were reason:but are impatient of privateness,even 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 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 the contrary within.For they are the first that find their own griefs;though they be the last that find their own faults.Certainly,men in great fortunes are strangers to themselves,and while they are in the pulse of business,they have no time to tend their health,either of body,or mind.Illi mors gravis incubat,qui notus nimis omnibus,ignotus moritur sibi.In place,there is licence to do good,and evil;whereof the latter is a curse;for in evil,the best condition 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 men,are little better than good dreams;except they be put in act;and that cannot be without power,and place;as the vantage,and commanding ground.Merit,and good works,is the end of man’s motion;and conscience of the same is the accomplishment of man’s rest.For if a man can be partaker of God’s theatre,he shall likewise be partaker of God’s rest Et conversus Deus,ut aspiceret opera quae fecerunt manus suae,vidit quod omnia essent bona nimis;and then the Sabbath.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 thy self strictly,whether thou didst not best at first.Neglect not also the examples of those that have carried themselves ill in the same place:not to set off thy self,by taxing their memory;but to direct thy self,what to avoid.Reform therefore,without bravery,or scandal,of former times,and persons;but yet set it down to thyself,as well to create good precedents,as to follow them.Reduce things to the first institution,and observe wherein,and how,they have degenerate;but yet ask counsel of both times;of the ancient time,what is best;and of the latter 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 digresses from thy rule.Preserve the right of thy place;but stir not questions of jurisdiction:and rather assume thy right in silence and de facto,than voice it with claims and challenges.Preserve likewise,the rights of inferior places;and think it more honour to direct in chief,than to be busy in all.Embrace and invite helps,and advices,touching the 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;corruption;roughness;and facility.For delays;give easy 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 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 thou changes 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 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 worse than bribery.For bribes come but now and then;but if importunity or idle respects lead a man,he shall never be without.As Solomon saith;to respect persons is not good;for such a man will transgress for a piece of bread.It is most true,that was anciently spoken;A place sheweth the man:and it showeth some to the better,and some to the worse:omnium consensu,capax imperii,nisi imperasset;saith Tacitus of Galba:but of Vespasian he saith;solus imperantium Vespasianus mutatus in melius.Though the one was meant of sufficiency,the other of manners,and affection.It is 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.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 sure 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 remembering,of my place in conversation and private answers to suitors;but let it rather be said;When he sits in place,he is another man.

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