“Round he surveyed and well might, where he stoodSo high above the circling canopyOf night’s extended shade—from eastern pointOf Libra, to the fleecy star which bearsAndromeda far off Atlantic seasBeyond the horizon.”
“Round he surveyed and well might, where he stoodSo high above the circling canopyOf night’s extended shade—from eastern pointOf Libra, to the fleecy star which bearsAndromeda far off Atlantic seasBeyond the horizon.”
“Round he surveyed and well might, where he stoodSo high above the circling canopyOf night’s extended shade—from eastern pointOf Libra, to the fleecy star which bearsAndromeda far off Atlantic seasBeyond the horizon.”
“Round he surveyed and well might, where he stood
So high above the circling canopy
Of night’s extended shade—from eastern point
Of Libra, to the fleecy star which bears
Andromeda far off Atlantic seas
Beyond the horizon.”
Bacon’s philosophy is, to use an expression of his own, “the servant and interpreter of nature;” he cultivated it in the leisure left him by the assiduous study and practice of the law and by the willing duties of a courtier; it was rather the recreation than the business of his life; “my business,” said he, “found rest in my contemplations;” but his very recreations rendered him, according to Leibnitz, the father of experimental philosophy, and, according to all, the originator of all its results, of all later discoveries in chemistry and the arts, in short, of all modern science and its applications.
Mr. Macaulay is of opinion that the two leading principles of his philosophy areutilityandprogress; that the ethics of his inductive method are to do good, to do more and more good, to mankind.
Lord Campbell believes that a most perfect body of ethics might be made out from the writings of Bacon.
The origin of his philosophy was the conviction with which he was impressed of the insufficiency of that of the ancients, or rather of that of Aristotle, which reigned with almost undisputed sway throughout Europe. He reverenced antiquity for its great works, its great men; but not because of its ancientness; he deemed its decrees worthy of reverential consideration, but did not think they admitted of no appeal; he was not a bigot to antiquity or a contemner of modern times. He happily combated that undue and blind submission to the authority of ancient times for the mere reason that they are older than our own, alleging truly that “ANTIQUITAS SECULI JUVENTUS MUNDI, that our times are the ancient times, when the world is ancient, and not those which we account ancient,ordine retrogrado, by a computation backward from ourselves.”32
Throwing off, then, all allegiance to antiquity, he appealed directly from Aristotle to nature, from reasoning to experiment.
But let us invoke the testimony of an eminent philosopher, Sir John Herschel:—
“By the discoveries of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, the errors of the Aristotelian philosophy were effectually overturned on a plain appeal to the facts of nature; but it remained to show, on broad and general principles, how and why Aristotle was in the wrong; to set in evidence the peculiar weakness of his method of philosophizing, and to substitute in its place a stronger and better. This important task was executed by Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, who will therefore justly be looked upon in all future ages as the great reformer of philosophy, though his own actual contributions to the stock of physical truths were small, and his ideas of particular points strongly tinctured with mistakes and errors, which were the fault rather of the general want of physical information of the age than of any narrowness of view on his own part; of this he was fully aware. It has been attempted by some to lessen the merit of this great achievement, by showing that the inductive method had been practised in many instances, both ancient and modern, by the mere instinct of mankind; but it is not the introduction of inductive reasoning, as a new and hitherto untried process, which characterizes the Baconian philosophy, but his keen perception, and his broad and spirit-stirring, almost enthusiastic, announcement of its paramount importance, as the alpha and omega of science, as the grand and only chain for the linking together of physical truths, and the eventual key to every discovery and every application. Those who would deny him his just glory on such grounds would refuse to Jenner or to Howard their civic crowns, because a few farmers in a remote province had, time out of mind, been acquainted with vaccination, or philanthropists, in all ages, had occasionally visited the prisoner in his dungeon.”“It is to our immortal countryman Bacon,” says he, again, “that we owe the broad announcement of this grand and fertile principle; and the development of the idea, that the whole of natural philosophy consists entirely of a series ofinductive generalizations, commencing with the most circumstantially stated particulars, and carried up to universal laws, or axioms, which comprehend in their statements every subordinate degree of generality and of a corresponding series of inverted reasoning from generals to particulars, by which these axioms are traced back into their remotest consequences, and all particular propositions deduced from them, as well those by whose immediate consideration we rose to their discovery, as those of which we had no previous knowledge....“It would seem that a union of two qualities almost opposite to each other—a going forth of the thoughts in two directions, and a sudden transfer of ideas from a remote station in one to an equally distant one in the other—is required to start the first idea ofapplying science. Among the Greeks, this point was attained by Archimedes, but attained too late, on the eve of that great eclipse of science which was destined to continue for nearly eighteen centuries, till Galileo in Italy, and Bacon in England, at once dispelled the darkness; the one, by his inventions and discoveries; the other, by the irresistible force of his arguments and eloquence.”33
“By the discoveries of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, the errors of the Aristotelian philosophy were effectually overturned on a plain appeal to the facts of nature; but it remained to show, on broad and general principles, how and why Aristotle was in the wrong; to set in evidence the peculiar weakness of his method of philosophizing, and to substitute in its place a stronger and better. This important task was executed by Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, who will therefore justly be looked upon in all future ages as the great reformer of philosophy, though his own actual contributions to the stock of physical truths were small, and his ideas of particular points strongly tinctured with mistakes and errors, which were the fault rather of the general want of physical information of the age than of any narrowness of view on his own part; of this he was fully aware. It has been attempted by some to lessen the merit of this great achievement, by showing that the inductive method had been practised in many instances, both ancient and modern, by the mere instinct of mankind; but it is not the introduction of inductive reasoning, as a new and hitherto untried process, which characterizes the Baconian philosophy, but his keen perception, and his broad and spirit-stirring, almost enthusiastic, announcement of its paramount importance, as the alpha and omega of science, as the grand and only chain for the linking together of physical truths, and the eventual key to every discovery and every application. Those who would deny him his just glory on such grounds would refuse to Jenner or to Howard their civic crowns, because a few farmers in a remote province had, time out of mind, been acquainted with vaccination, or philanthropists, in all ages, had occasionally visited the prisoner in his dungeon.”
“It is to our immortal countryman Bacon,” says he, again, “that we owe the broad announcement of this grand and fertile principle; and the development of the idea, that the whole of natural philosophy consists entirely of a series ofinductive generalizations, commencing with the most circumstantially stated particulars, and carried up to universal laws, or axioms, which comprehend in their statements every subordinate degree of generality and of a corresponding series of inverted reasoning from generals to particulars, by which these axioms are traced back into their remotest consequences, and all particular propositions deduced from them, as well those by whose immediate consideration we rose to their discovery, as those of which we had no previous knowledge....
“It would seem that a union of two qualities almost opposite to each other—a going forth of the thoughts in two directions, and a sudden transfer of ideas from a remote station in one to an equally distant one in the other—is required to start the first idea ofapplying science. Among the Greeks, this point was attained by Archimedes, but attained too late, on the eve of that great eclipse of science which was destined to continue for nearly eighteen centuries, till Galileo in Italy, and Bacon in England, at once dispelled the darkness; the one, by his inventions and discoveries; the other, by the irresistible force of his arguments and eloquence.”33
His style is copious, comprehensive, and smooth; it does not flow with the softness of the purling rill, but rather with the strength, fulness, and swelling of a majestic river, and the rude harmony of the mountain stream. His images are replete with poetry and thought; they always illustrate his subject. Hallam is of opinion that the modern writer that comes nearest to him is Burke. “He had,” said Addison, “the sound, distinct, comprehensive knowledge of Aristotle, with all the beautiful lights, graces, andembellishments of Cicero. One does not know which to admire most in his writings, the strength of reason, force of style, or brightness of imagination.”34
Bacon improved so much the melody, elegance, and force of English prose, that we may apply to him what was said of Augustus with regard to Rome:lateritiam invenit, marmoream reliquit; he found it brick, and he left it marble. Mr. Hallam’s opinion differs somewhat from this; it is as follows:—
“The style of Bacon has an idiosyncrasy which we might expect from his genius. It can rarely indeed happen, and only in men of secondary talents, that the language they use is not, by its very choice and collocation, as well as its meaning, the representative of an individuality that distinguishes their turn of thought. Bacon is elaborate, sententious, often witty, often metaphorical; nothing could be spared; his analogies are generally striking and novel; his style is clear, precise, forcible; yet there is some degree of stiffness about it, and in mere language he is inferior to Raleigh.”35
“The style of Bacon has an idiosyncrasy which we might expect from his genius. It can rarely indeed happen, and only in men of secondary talents, that the language they use is not, by its very choice and collocation, as well as its meaning, the representative of an individuality that distinguishes their turn of thought. Bacon is elaborate, sententious, often witty, often metaphorical; nothing could be spared; his analogies are generally striking and novel; his style is clear, precise, forcible; yet there is some degree of stiffness about it, and in mere language he is inferior to Raleigh.”35
It is a most remarkable characteristic of Bacon, and one in which Burke resembled him, that his imagination grew stronger with his increasing years, and his style richer and softer. “The fruit came first,” says Mr. Macaulay, “and remained till the last; the blossoms did not appear till late. In eloquence, in sweetness and variety of expression, and in richness of illustration, his later writings are farsuperior to those of his youth.” His earliest Essays have as much truth and cogent reasoning as his latest; but these are far superior in grace and beauty. A most striking illustration of this is afforded by one of the last Essays, added a year before Bacon’s death, that ofAdversity(Essay V.), than which naught can be more graceful and beautiful.
The account of Bacon’s works will necessarily be very succinct, and, we fear, imperfect. We shall, however, for each of them, call in the aid of the most competent judges, whose award public opinion will not reverse.
Bacon published hisEssaysin 1597. They were, in the estimation of Mr. Hallam, the first in time and in excellence of English writings on moral prudence. Of the fifty-eight Essays, of which the work is now composed, ten only appeared in the first edition. But to these were addedReligious Meditations, Places of Perswasion and Disswasion, Seene and allowed; many of which were afterwards embodied in the Essays. These Essays were: 1. Of Studie; 2. Of Discourse; 3. Of Ceremonies and Respects; 4. Of Followers and Friends; 5. Of Sutors; 6. Of Expence; 7. Of Regiment of Health; 8. Of Honor and Reputation; 9. Of Faction; 10. Of Negociating. In the edition of 1612, “The Essaies of SrFrancis Bacon Knight, the King’s Atturny Generall,” were increased to forty-one.
The new Essays added are: 1. Of Religion; 2. Of Death; 3. Of Goodnesse, and Goodnesse of Nature; 4. Of Cunning; 5. Of Marriage and Single Life; 6. Of Parents and Children; 7. Of Nobility; 8. Of Great Place; 9. Of Empire; 10. Of Counsell; 11. Of Dispatch; 12. Of Love; 13. Of Friendship; 14. Of Atheism; 15. Of Superstition; 16. Of Wisedome for a Man’s selfe; 20. Of seeming wise; 21. Of Riches; 22. Of Ambition; 23. Of Young Men and Age; 24. Of Beauty; 25. Of Deformity; 26. Of Nature in Men; 27. Of Custom and Education; 28. Of Fortune; 35. Of Praise; 36. Of Judicature; 37. of Vaine-Glory; 38. Of Greatnesse of Kingdomes; 39. Of the Publique; 40. Of Warre and Peace.
These forty-one Essays were afterwards again augmented to fifty-eight, with the new title ofThe Essaies or Covnsels, Civill and Morall; they were likewise improved by corrections, additions, and illustrations. By the peculiarity of Bacon, already noticed, the later Essays rise in beauty and interest.
Bacon considered his Essays but as “the recreations of his other studies.” He has entitled them, in the Latin translation,Sermones fideles, sive Interiora rerum. The idea of them, as has been already mentioned, was suggested by those of Montaigne; but there is but little resemblance between the two productions. Montaigne is natural, ingenuous, sportive. Bacon’s “Essays or Counsels, civil and moral,” “the fragments of his conceits,” as he styles them, are all study, art, and gravity; but the reflections in themare true and profound. Montaigne confessedly painted himself, declared that he was the matter of his own book,36while with Bacon the man was merged in the author and the philosopher, who propounded like Seneca, and somewhat in Seneca’s style, the maxims of practical wisdom, that, to use Bacon’s own language, “come home to men’s business and bosoms,” and clothed them in a garb, new, elegant, and rich, hitherto unknown in England. But our author, if we may judge by the matter and even manner of his Essays, may have had in view, not so much Montaigne’sEssaisas Seneca’sLetters to Lucilius. The Essay ofDeathis obviously founded on Seneca’s Epistles on this subject. That he was well acquainted with Seneca’sLetters, is incontrovertible. He alludes to them thus in the dedication to Prince Henry, in 1612: “The word (Essays),” says he, “is late, but the thing is ancient; for Seneca’s Epistles to Lucilius, if you mark them well, are but Essays, that is, dispersed meditations, though conveyed in the form of epistles.” Bacon justly foretold of his Essays that they “would live as long as books last.”
The following is the opinion of Dugald Stewart, himself an eminent philosopher and elegant writer:
“HisEssaysare the best known and most popular of all his works. It is also one of those where the superiority of his genius appears to the greatest advantage; the novelty and depth of his reflections often receiving a strong relief from triteness of the subject. It may be read from beginning to end in a few hours; and yet, after the twentieth perusal, one seldom fails to remark in it something unobserved before. This, indeed, is a characteristic of all Bacon’s writings, and only to be accounted for by the inexhaustible aliment they furnish to our own thoughts, and the sympathetic activity they impart to our torpid faculties.”37
“HisEssaysare the best known and most popular of all his works. It is also one of those where the superiority of his genius appears to the greatest advantage; the novelty and depth of his reflections often receiving a strong relief from triteness of the subject. It may be read from beginning to end in a few hours; and yet, after the twentieth perusal, one seldom fails to remark in it something unobserved before. This, indeed, is a characteristic of all Bacon’s writings, and only to be accounted for by the inexhaustible aliment they furnish to our own thoughts, and the sympathetic activity they impart to our torpid faculties.”37
The reader will, perhaps, be rather gratified than wearied with another appreciation of this valuable production of our young moralist of twenty-six. It is of no incompetent judge,—Mr. Hallam.
“The transcendent strength of Bacon’s mind is visible in the whole tenor of these Essays, unequal as they must be from the very nature of such compositions. They are deeper and more discriminating than any earlier, or almost any later work in the English language, full of recondite observation, long matured and carefully sifted. It is true that we might wish for more vivacity and ease; Bacon, who had much wit, had little gayety; his Essays are consequently stiff and grave where the subject might have been touched with a lively hand; thus it is in those on Gardens and on Building. The sentences have sometimes too apophthegmatic a form and want coherence; the historical instances, though far less frequent than with Montaigne, have a little the look of pedantry to our eyes. But it is from this condensation, from thisgravity, that the work derives its peculiar impressiveness. Few books are more quoted, and what is not always the case with such books, we may add that few are more generally read. In this respect they lead the van of our prose literature; for no gentleman is ashamed of owning that he has not read the Elizabethan writers; but it would be somewhat derogatory to a man of the slightest claim to polite letters, were he unacquainted with the Essays of Bacon. It is, indeed, little worth while to read this or any other book for reputation sake; but very few in our language so well repay the pains, or afford more nourishment to the thoughts. They might be judiciously introduced, with a small number more, into a sound method of education, one that should make wisdom, rather than mere knowledge, its object, and might become a text-book of examination in our schools.”38
“The transcendent strength of Bacon’s mind is visible in the whole tenor of these Essays, unequal as they must be from the very nature of such compositions. They are deeper and more discriminating than any earlier, or almost any later work in the English language, full of recondite observation, long matured and carefully sifted. It is true that we might wish for more vivacity and ease; Bacon, who had much wit, had little gayety; his Essays are consequently stiff and grave where the subject might have been touched with a lively hand; thus it is in those on Gardens and on Building. The sentences have sometimes too apophthegmatic a form and want coherence; the historical instances, though far less frequent than with Montaigne, have a little the look of pedantry to our eyes. But it is from this condensation, from thisgravity, that the work derives its peculiar impressiveness. Few books are more quoted, and what is not always the case with such books, we may add that few are more generally read. In this respect they lead the van of our prose literature; for no gentleman is ashamed of owning that he has not read the Elizabethan writers; but it would be somewhat derogatory to a man of the slightest claim to polite letters, were he unacquainted with the Essays of Bacon. It is, indeed, little worth while to read this or any other book for reputation sake; but very few in our language so well repay the pains, or afford more nourishment to the thoughts. They might be judiciously introduced, with a small number more, into a sound method of education, one that should make wisdom, rather than mere knowledge, its object, and might become a text-book of examination in our schools.”38
TheAdvancement of Learningwas published in 1605. It has usually been considered that the whole of Bacon’s philosophy is contained in this work, excepting, however, the second book of theNovum Organum. Of theAdvancement of Learninghe made a Latin translation, under the title ofDe Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum, which, however, contains about one third of new matter and some slight interpolations; a few omissions have been remarked in it.
TheAdvancement of Learningis, as it were, to use his own language, “a small globe of theintellectual world, as truly and faithfully as I could discover with a note and description of those facts which seem to me not constantly occupate or not well converted by the labor of man. In which, if I have in any point receded from that which is commonly received, it hath been with a purpose of proceedingin meliusand notin aliud, a mind of amendment and proficience, and not of change and difference. For I could not be true and constant to the argument I handle, if I were not willing to go beyond others, but yet not more willing than to have others go beyond me.”
TheAdvancement of Learningis divided into two parts; the former of which is intended to remove prejudices against the search after truth, by pointing out the causes which obstruct it; in the second, learning is divided into history, poetry, and philosophy, according to the faculties of the mind from which they emanate—memory, imagination, and reason. Our author states the deficiencies he observes in each.
All the peculiar qualities of his style are fully developed in this noble monument of genius, one of the finest in English, or perhaps any other language; it is full of deep thought, keen observation, rich imagery, Attic wit, and apt illustration. Dugald Stewart and Hallam have both expressed their just admiration of the short paragraph on poesy; but, with all due deference, we must consider that the beautiful passage on the dignity and excellency ofknowledge is surpassed by none. Can aught excel the noble comparison of the ship? The reader shall judge for himself.
“If the invention of the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, and consociateth the most remote regions in participation of their fruits; how much more are letters to be magnified, which, as ships, pass through the vast seas of time, and make ages so distant to participate of the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, the one of the other?”
“If the invention of the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, and consociateth the most remote regions in participation of their fruits; how much more are letters to be magnified, which, as ships, pass through the vast seas of time, and make ages so distant to participate of the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, the one of the other?”
TheWisdom of the Ancients, or rather,De sapientia veterum(for it was written in Latin), is a short treatise on the mythology of the ancients, by which Bacon endeavors to discover and to show the physical, moral, and political meanings it concealed. If the reader is not convinced that the ancients understood by these fables all that Bacon discovers in them, he must at least admit the probability of it, and be impressed with the penetration of the author and the variety and depth of his knowledge.
TheInstauratio Magnawas published in 1620, while Bacon was still chancellor.
In his dedication of it to James the First, in 1620, in which he says he has been engaged in it nearly thirty years, he pathetically remarks: “The reasonwhy I have published it now, specially being imperfect, is, to speak plainly, because I number my days, and would have it saved.” His country and the world participate in the opinion of the philosopher, and would have deemed its loss one of the greatest to mankind.
Such was the care with which it was composed, that Bacon transcribed it twelve times with his own hand.
It is divided into six parts. The first entitledPartitiones Scientiarum, or the divisions of knowledge possessed by mankind, in which the author has noted the deficiencies and imperfections of each. This he had already accomplished by hisAdvancement of Learning.
Part 2 is theNovum Organum Scientiarum, or new method of studying the sciences, a name probably suggested by Aristotle’sOrganon(treatises on Logic). He intended it to be “the science of a better and more perfect use of reason in the investigation of things and of the true end of understanding.” This has been generally denominated theinductive method, i. e. the experimental method, from the principle ofinduction, or bringing together facts and drawing from them general principles or truths, by which the author proposes the advancement of all kinds of knowledge. In this consists preëminently the philosophy of Bacon. Not reasoning upon conjecture on the laws and properties of nature, but, as Bacon quaintly terms it, “askingquestions of nature,” that is, making experiments, laboriously collecting facts first, and, after a sufficient number has been brought together, then forming systems or theories founded on them.
But this work is rather the summary of a more extensive one he designed, the aphorisms of it being rather, according to Hallam, “the heads or theses of chapters.” But some of these principles are of paramount importance. An instance may be afforded of this, extracted from the “Interpretation of Nature, and Man’s dominion over it.” It is the very first sentence in theNovum Organum. “Man, the servant and interpreter of nature, can only understand and act in proportion as he observes and contemplates the order of nature; more, he can neither know nor do.” This, as has justly been observed, is undoubtedly the foundation of all our real knowledge.
TheNovum Organumis so important, that we deem it desirable to present some more detailed accounts of it.
The body of the work is divided into two parts; the former of which is intended to serve as an introduction to the other, a preparation of the mind for receiving the doctrine.
Bacon begins by endeavoring to remove the prejudices and to obtain fair attention to his doctrine. He compares philosophy to “a vast pyramid, which ought to have the history of nature for its basis;” he likens those who strive to erect by the force of abstract speculation to the giants of old, who,according to the poets, endeavored to throw Mount Ossa upon Pelion, and Olympus upon Ossa. The method of “anticipating nature,” he denounces “as rash, hasty, and unphilosophical;” whereas, “interpretations of nature, or real truths arrived at by deduction, cannot so suddenly arrest the mind; and when the conclusion actually arrives, it may so oppose prejudice, and appear so paradoxical as to be in danger of not being received, notwithstanding the evidence that supports it, like mysteries of faith.”
Bacon first attacks the “Idols of the Mind,” i. e. the great sources of prejudice, then the different false philosophical theories; he afterwards proceeds to show what are the characteristics of false systems, the causes of error in philosophy, and lastly the grounds of hope regarding the advancement of science.
He now aspires, to use his own language, “only to sow the seeds of pure truth for posterity, and not to be wanting in his assistance to the first beginning of great undertakings.” “Let the human race,” says he further, “regain their dominion over nature, which belongs to them by the bounty of their Maker, and right reason and sound religion will direct the use.”
The second part of theNovum Organummay be divided into three sections. The first is on the discovery of forms, i. e. causes in nature. The second section is composed oftablesillustrative of the inductive method, and the third and last isstyled thedoctrine of instances, i. e. facts regarding the discovery of causes.
Part the third of theInstauratio Magnawas to be a Natural History, as he termed it, or rather a history of natural substances, in which the art of man had been employed, which would have been a history of universal nature.
Part 4, to be calledScala intellectus, orIntellectual Ladder, was intended to be, to use his own words, “types and models which place before our eyes the entire process of the mind in the discovery of truth, selecting various and remarkable instances.”
He had designed in the fifth part to give specimens of the new philosophy; a few fragments only of this have been published. It was to be “the fragment of interest till the principal could be raised.”
The sixth and last part was “to display a perfect system of philosophy deduced and confirmed by a legitimate, sober, and exact inquiry according to the method he had laid down and invented.” “To perfect this last part,” says Bacon, “is above our powers and beyond our hopes.”
Let us return, however, for a moment to the commencement, to remark that he concludes the introduction by an eloquent prayer that his exertions may be rendered effectual to the attainment of truth and happiness. But he feels his own inability, for “his days are numbered,” to conduct mankind to the hoped for goal. It was given to him to point out the road to the promised land; but,like Moses, after having descried it from afar, it was denied him to enter the land to which he had led the way.
TheLife of Henry VII., published in 1622, is, in the opinion of Hallam, “the first instance in our language of the application of philosophy to reasoning on public events in the manner of the ancients and the Italians. Praise upon Henry is too largely bestowed; but it was in the nature of Bacon to admire too much a crafty and selfish policy; and he thought also, no doubt, that so near an ancestor of his own sovereign should not be treated with severe impartiality.”39
HisLetterspublished in his works are numerous; they are written in a stiff, ungraceful, formal style; but still, they frequently bear the impress of the writer’s greatness and genius. Fragments of them have been frequently quoted in the course of this notice; they have, perhaps, best served to exhibit more fully the man in all the relations of his public and private life.
Amongst his miscellaneous papers there was found after his death a remarkable prayer, which Addisondeemed sufficiently beautiful to be published in theTatler40for Christmas, 1710. We extract a passage or two, that may serve to illustrate Bacon’s position or his character.
“I have, though in a despised weed, procured the good of all men. If any have been my enemies, I thought not of them, neither hath the sun almost set upon my displeasure; but I have been as a dove, free from superfluity of maliciousness.” “Just are thy judgments upon me for my sins, which are more in number than the sands of the sea, but have no proportion to thy mercies; for what are the sands of the sea? Earth, heaven, and all these are nothing to thy mercies.”
“I have, though in a despised weed, procured the good of all men. If any have been my enemies, I thought not of them, neither hath the sun almost set upon my displeasure; but I have been as a dove, free from superfluity of maliciousness.” “Just are thy judgments upon me for my sins, which are more in number than the sands of the sea, but have no proportion to thy mercies; for what are the sands of the sea? Earth, heaven, and all these are nothing to thy mercies.”
Addison observes of this prayer, that for elevation of thought and greatness of expression, “it seems—rather the devotion of an angel than a man.”
In taking leave of the life and the works of the greatest of philosophers, and alas! the least of men, we have endeavored to present a succinct but faithful narrative—“his glory not extenuated wherein he was worthy, nor his offences enforced, for which he suffered” merited obloquy with his own contemporaries and all posterity. Our endeavor has been
Verba animi proferre et vitam impendere vero.
Verba animi proferre et vitam impendere vero.
Verba animi proferre et vitam impendere vero.
Verba animi proferre et vitam impendere vero.
But his failings, great as they were, are forgotten through his transcendent merit; his faults injured but few, and in his own time alone; his genius has benefited all mankind. The new direction he gave to philosophy was the indirect cause of all the modernconquests of science over matter, or, as it were, over nature. What it has already accomplished, and may yet effect for the whole human race, is incalculable. Macaulay, the historian of England, has been likewise the eloquent narrator of the progress, that owes its origin to the genius of Francis Bacon.
“Ask a follower of Bacon,” says Macaulay, “what the new philosophy, as it was called in the time of Charles the Second, has effected for mankind, and his answer is ready: ‘It hath lengthened life; it has mitigated pain; it has extinguished diseases; it has increased the fertility of the soil; it has given new securities to the mariner; it has furnished new arms to the warrior; it has spanned great rivers and estuaries with bridges of form unknown to our fathers; it has guided the thunderbolt innocuously from heaven to earth; it has lighted up the night with the splendor of the day; it has extended the range of the human vision; it has multiplied the power of the human muscle; it has accelerated motion; it has annihilated distance; it has facilitated intercourse, correspondence, all friendly offices, all dispatch of business; it has enabled man to descend to the depths of the sea, to soar into the air, to penetrate securely into the noxious recesses of the earth, to traverse the land on cars which whirl along without horses, and the ocean in ships which sail against the wind. These are but a part of its fruits, and of its first-fruits. For it is a philosophy which never rests, which has never attained, which is never perfect. Its law is progress. A point which yesterday was invisible is its goal to-day, and will be its starting-post to-morrow.’”41
“Ask a follower of Bacon,” says Macaulay, “what the new philosophy, as it was called in the time of Charles the Second, has effected for mankind, and his answer is ready: ‘It hath lengthened life; it has mitigated pain; it has extinguished diseases; it has increased the fertility of the soil; it has given new securities to the mariner; it has furnished new arms to the warrior; it has spanned great rivers and estuaries with bridges of form unknown to our fathers; it has guided the thunderbolt innocuously from heaven to earth; it has lighted up the night with the splendor of the day; it has extended the range of the human vision; it has multiplied the power of the human muscle; it has accelerated motion; it has annihilated distance; it has facilitated intercourse, correspondence, all friendly offices, all dispatch of business; it has enabled man to descend to the depths of the sea, to soar into the air, to penetrate securely into the noxious recesses of the earth, to traverse the land on cars which whirl along without horses, and the ocean in ships which sail against the wind. These are but a part of its fruits, and of its first-fruits. For it is a philosophy which never rests, which has never attained, which is never perfect. Its law is progress. A point which yesterday was invisible is its goal to-day, and will be its starting-post to-morrow.’”41
What is truth? said jesting Pilate;42and would not stay for an answer. Certainly, there be that delight in giddiness; and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting freewill 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 labor which men take in finding out of truth: nor again, that, when it is found, it imposeth upon men’s thoughts, that doth bring lies in favor; but a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the later schools43of the Grecians examineththe 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 the merchant, but for the lie’s sake. But I cannot tell; this same truth is a naked and open daylight, that doth not show the masks, and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day, but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men’s minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, 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,44in great severity, called poesy “vinum dæmonum,”45because it filleth the imagination, and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in, and settleth in it, that doth the hurt, such as we spake of before. But howsoever these things are thus in men’s depraved judgments and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth,which is the love-making, or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the sense;46the last was the light of reason;47and 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 poet48that beautified the sect,49that was otherwise inferior to the rest, saith yet excellently well: “It is apleasure 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;”50so 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 honor of man’s nature, and that mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coinof 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 Montaigne51saith prettily, when he inquired 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 say that a man lieth, is as much as to say that he is brave towards God and a coward towards men. For a lie faces God, and shrinks from man;” surely, the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot possibly be so highly expressed, as in that it shall be the last peal to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men: it being foretold, that, when “Christ cometh,” he shall not “find faith upon the earth.”52
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 mortification, 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 than the torture of a limb, for the most vital parts are not the quickest of sense. And by him that spake only as a philosopher and natural man, it was well said, “Pompa mortis magis terret, quam mors ipsa.”54Groans and convulsions, and a discolored face, and friends weeping, and blacks55and obsequies, and the like, show death terrible. It is worthy the observing, that there is no passionin 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; honor aspireth to it; grief flieth to it; fear preoccupateth it; nay, we read, after Otho the emperor had slain himself, pity (which is the tenderest of affections) provoked many to die out of mere compassion to their sovereign, and as the truest sort of followers.56Nay, Seneca57adds niceness and satiety: “Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris; mori velle, non tantum fortis, aut miser, sed etiam fastidiosus potest.”58A 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 the approaches of death make: for they appear to be the same men till the last instant. Augustus Cæsar died in a compliment: “Livia, conjugii nostri memor, vive et vale.”59Tiberius in dissimulation, as Tacitus saith of him, “Jam Tiberium vires et corpus, non dissimulatio, deserebant:”60Vespasian in a jest, sittingupon the stool,61“Ut puto Deus fio;”62Galba with a sentence, “Feri, si ex re sit populi Romani,”63holding forth his neck; Septimus Severus in dispatch, “Adeste, si quid mihi restat agendum,”64and the like. Certainly, the Stoics65bestowed too much cost upon death, and by their great preparations made it appear more fearful. Better, saith he, “qui finem vitæ extremum inter munera ponit naturæ.”66It 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 thatis wounded in hot blood, who, for the time, scarce feels the hurt; and therefore a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat that is good, doth avert the dolors of death; but, above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is “Nunc dimittis,”67when a man hath obtained worthy ends and expectations. Death hath this also, that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy: “Extinctus amabitur idem.”68
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 hath 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 the means.
The fruits of unity (next unto the well-pleasing of God, which is all in all), are two; the one towards those that are without the church, the other towards those that are within. For the former, it is certain that heresies and schisms are, of all others, the greatest scandals, yea, more than corruption of manners; for as in the natural body a wound or solution of continuity is worse than a corrupt humor, 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,”69another saith, “Ecce in penetralibus;”70that 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 a heathen71comein, 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.”72It 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 Morris-Dance73of Heretics;” for, indeed, every sect of them hath a diverse posture, or cringe, by themselves, which cannot but move derision in worldlings and depraved politicians, who are apt to contemn holy things.
As for the fruit towards those that are within, it is peace, which containeth infinite blessings; it establisheth faith; it kindleth charity; the outwardpeace of the church distilleth into peace of conscience, and it turneth the labors of writing and reading of controversies into treatises 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 zealots all speech of pacification is odious. “Is it peace, Jehu?”—“What hast thou to do with peace? turn thee behind me.”74Peace is not the matter, but following, and party. Contrariwise, certain Laodiceans75and 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 arbitrament 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;”76and 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 the point controverted is too small and light, not worth the heat and strife about it, kindled only by contradiction; for, as it is noted by one of the fathers, “Christ’s coat indeed had no seam, but the church’s vesture was of divers colors;” whereupon he saith, “In veste varietas sit, scissura non sit,”77they be two things, unity and uniformity; the other is, when the matter of the point controverted is great, but it is driven to an over-great subtilty and obscurity, so that it becometh a thing rather ingenious than substantial. A man that is of judgment and understanding shall sometimes hear ignorant men differ, and know well within himself, that those which so differ mean one thing, and yet they themselves would never agree; and if it come so to pass in that distance of judgment, which is between man and man, shall we not think that God above, that knows the heart, doth not discern that frail men, in some of 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 scientiæ.”78Men 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 governeth the meaning. There be also two false peaces, or unities; the one, when the peace is grounded but upon an implicit ignorance; for all colors will agree in the dark; the 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 Nebuchadnezzar’s image;79they 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 Mahomet’s sword,80or like unto it; that is, to propagate religion by wars, or, by sanguinary persecutions, to force consciences; except it be in cases of overt scandal, blasphemy, or intermixture of practice against the state; much less to nourish seditions, to authorize 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;—