Essays of Francis Bacon

Essays, Civil and Moral

Francis Bacon

To the Right Honourable my very good Lo. the DvuKE of BuckineHaM his Grace, Lo. High A = miral of England.

EXCELLENT Lo.

SALOMON says, A good name is as a precious ointment ; and I assure myself, such will your Grace’s name be with posterity. For your fortune and merit both have been eminent. And you have planted things that are like to last. Ido now publish my Essays; which, of all my other works have been most cur- rent; for that, as it seems, they come home to men’s. business and bosoms. I have enlarged them both in number and weight; so that they are indeed a new work. I thought it therefore agreeable to my affection and obligation to your Grace, to prefix your name before them, both in English and in Latin. For I do conceive that the Latin volume of them (being in the universal language) may last | as long as books last. My Instauration I dedicated ° to the King; my History of 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

THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY

best fruits that by the good encrease 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 seruant, FR. St. ALBAN.

“1. Of Truth ‘ 23, Of Wisdom for a Man’s

2. Of Death. Self.

,3- Of Unity in Religion. 24, Of Innovations.

4. Of Revenge. 25. Of Dispatch. ™ 5, Of Adversity. ~ 26. Of Seeming Wise.

™ 6. Of Simulation and Dis- “27. Of Friendship. simulation. 28. Of Expense.

7. Of Parents and Chil- 29. Of the True Greatness dren. of Kingdoms and S8, Of Marriage and Single Estates.

Life. 30. Of Regiment of Health.

9. Of Envy. 31. Of Suspicion. ™~10. Of Love. 32. Of Discourse.

“11 Of Great Place. ‘33, Of Plantations. 12. Of Boldness. 34. Of Riches. 13. Of Goodness,andGood- 35. Of Prophecies. ness of Nature. 36. Of Ambition. 14. Of Nobility. 37. Of Masks and Tri- 15. Of Seditions and umphs. Troubles. 38. Of Nature in Men. “16. Of Atheism. 39. Of Custom and Educa- ™ 17. Of Superstition. tion. 18. Of Travel. 40. Of Fortune. 19. Of Empire. 41. Of Usury. 20. Of Counsel. 42. Of Youth and Age. 21. Of Delays. 43. Of Beauty.

22, Of Cunning. 44, Of Deformity.

. Of Building. 53. Of Praise.

. Of Gardens. 54. Of Vain Glory.

. Of Negotiating. 55. Of Honour and Repu- . Of Followersand Friends. tation.

. Of Suitors. 56. Of Judicature.

. Of Studies. 57. Of Anger.

. Of Faction. 58. Of Vicissitude of

. Of Ceremonies and Re- Things.

spects.

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WHAT is Truth ?+ said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for dn answer. Certainly there be that delight in giddiness; and count it a bondage to fix

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in acting. And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discours- ing‘ wits which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them as was in those of the ancients. But itis 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

2 Bacon probably had in mind here the sceptical philosophy of Heraclitus of Ephesus, born about 585 B.o., died about 475 B.c. Pyrrho, 860(?)—270(?%) B.o., and Carneades, 218(?)-—129 B.o., maintained that certainty could not be affirmed about anything. The reference may be to Democritus, ‘the Abderite,’ born about 460 B.C., died about 357 B.O., called ‘the laughing philosopher.’

“Fleat Heraclitus, an rideat Democritus? ... shall I laugh with Democritus or weep with Heraclitus?’’ Robert Burton. The Anat- omy of Melancholy. Partition 8. Section 4. Member 1. Subsec- tion 8.

4 Discoursing. Possibly in the sense of discursive; i.e. roving, unsettled. But the word may mean debating, arguing.

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 ad- vantage, as with the merchant; but for the lie’s sake. But I cannot tell: this same truth is a naked and open day-light, that doth not shew 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 sheweth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that sheweth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, 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 indis- position, and unpleasing to themselves? One of the Fathers, in great severity, called_poesy vinum

demonum* because it filleth the imagination; and

et it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is set dhe We tht paseoth i through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the hurt; such as we spake of before. But howso-

1“There should always be some foundation of fact for the most airy fabric, and pure invention is but the talent of a liar.”” Byron. Letter to John Murray. April 2, 1817. Lettera and Journals. T. Moore.

3 As one would. That is, as one willed, or wished. The verb will has here its presentive sense, as in Philippians ti. 18, ‘‘For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”’

‘Wine of devils. Used by St. Augustine, 354-480 a.D., Bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia. The Oonfessions of Augustine. I. xvt. 26.

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ever! these things are thus in men’s depraved judg- ments 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. Furst 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: Jt 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