Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients
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 beforehand, 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,[87] 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?”[88] 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[89]
are for the most part fortunate; as that for the death of Cæsar;[90]
for the death of Pertinax; for the death of Henry the Third of
France;[91] 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.
V.—OF ADVERSITY.
It was a 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.”)[92] 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 frailty of a man,
and the security of a God.” (“Vere magnum habere fragilitatem hominis
securitatem Dei.”)[93] 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,[94] 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 bark 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 favor. Yet even in the
Old Testament, if you listen to David’s harp, you shall hear as many
hearse-like airs[95] as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath
labored 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 needleworks 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 odors, most fragrant
when they are incensed, or crushed; for prosperity doth best discover
vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.[96]
VI.—OF SIMULATION AND 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 politicians that are the great
dissemblers.
Tacitus saith, “Livia sorted well with the arts of her husband, and
dissimulation of her son;[97] attributing arts or policy to Augustus,
and dissimulation to Tiberius:” and again, when Mucianus 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.”[98] 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 hinderance 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 a 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[99] 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 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;”[100] 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 carry
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
coöperate 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.
VII.—OF PARENTS AND 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 labors, 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.”[101] A man shall see, where there
is a house full of children, one or two of the eldest respected, and
the youngest made wantons;[102] 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
a 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[103] 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 sorteth[104] to discord when they are men, and
disturbeth families.[105] The Italians make little difference between
children and nephews, or near kinsfolk; but so they be of the lump,