Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients
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 them are true and profound.
Montaigne confessedly painted himself, declared that he was the matter
of his own book,[36] while 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’s _Essais_ as
Seneca’s _Letters to Lucilius_. The Essay of _Death_ is obviously
founded on Seneca’s Epistles on this subject. That he was well
acquainted with Seneca’s _Letters_, 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:
“His _Essays_ are 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 this
gravity, 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]
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
The _Advancement of Learning_ was 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 the _Novum Organum_.
Of the _Advancement of Learning_ he made a Latin translation, under
the title of _De 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.
The _Advancement of Learning_ is, as it were, to use his own language,
“a small globe of the intellectual 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 proceeding _in melius_ and
not _in 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.”
The _Advancement of Learning_ is 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 of knowledge 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?”
DE SAPIENTIA VETERUM.
The _Wisdom 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.
INSTAURATIO MAGNA.
The _Instauratio Magna_ was 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 reason why 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 entitled _Partitiones
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 his _Advancement of Learning_.
Part 2 is the _Novum Organum Scientiarum_, or new method of studying
the sciences, a name probably suggested by Aristotle’s _Organon_
(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
the _inductive method_, i. e. the experimental method, from the
principle of _induction_, 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, “asking
questions 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 the _Novum 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.
The _Novum Organum_ is 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 the _Novum Organum_ may be divided into three
sections. The first is on the discovery of forms, i. e. causes in