Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients
lose part of his fleece. On the other side, an ancient clerk, skilful
in precedents, wary in proceeding, and understanding in the business of
the court, is an excellent finger of a court, and doth many times point
the way to the judge himself.
Fourthly, for that which may concern the sovereign and estate. Judges
ought, above all, to remember the conclusion of the Roman Twelve
Tables,[574] “Salus populi suprema lex;”[575] and to know that laws,
except they be in order to that end, are but things captious, and
oracles not well inspired; therefore it is a happy thing in a state,
when kings and states do often consult with judges; and again, when
judges do often consult with the king and state: the one, when there
is matter of law intervenient in business of state; the other, when
there is some consideration of state intervenient in matter of law;
for many times the things deduced to judgment may be “meum”[576]
and “tuum,”[577] when the reason and consequence thereof may trench
to point of estate. I call matter of estate, not only the parts of
sovereignty, but whatsoever introduceth any great alteration, or
dangerous precedent, or concerneth manifestly any great portion of
people; and 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. Let judges also remember, that Solomon’s throne
was supported by lions[578] on both sides; let them be lions, but yet
lions under the throne, being circumspect that they do not check or
oppose any points of sovereignty. Let not judges also be so ignorant of
their own right, as to think there is not left to them, as a principal
part of their office, a wise use and application of laws; for they
may remember what the apostle saith of a greater law than theirs: “Nos
scimus quia lex bona est, modo quis eâ utatur legitime.”[579]
LVII.—OF ANGER.
To seek to extinguish anger utterly is but a bravery[580] of the
Stoics. We have better oracles: “Be angry, but sin not; let not the sun
go down upon your anger.”[581] Anger must be limited and confined, both
in race and in time. We will first speak how the natural inclination
and habit, “to be angry,” may be attempered and calmed; secondly,
how the particular motions of anger may be repressed, or, at least,
refrained from doing mischief; thirdly, how to raise anger, or appease
anger in another.
For the first, there is no other way but to meditate and ruminate well
upon the effects of anger, how it troubles man’s life; and the best
time to do this is, to look back upon anger when the fit is thoroughly
over. Seneca saith well, “that anger is like ruin, which breaks itself
upon that it falls.”[582] The Scripture exhorteth us “to possess our
souls in patience;”[583] whosoever is out of patience, is out of
possession of his soul. Men must not turn bees:—
“animasque in vulnere ponunt.”[584]
Anger is certainly a kind of baseness; as it appears well in the
weakness of those subjects in whom it reigns, children, women, old
folks, sick folks. Only men must beware that they carry their anger
rather with scorn than with fear; so that they may seem rather to be
above the injury than below it; which is a thing easily done, if a man
will give law to himself in it.
For the second point, the causes and motives of anger are chiefly
three. First, to be too sensible of hurt, for no man is angry that
feels not himself hurt; and therefore tender and delicate persons must
needs be oft angry, they have so many things to trouble them, which
more robust natures have little sense of: the next is, the apprehension
and construction of the injury offered, to be, in the circumstances
thereof, full of contempt; for contempt is that which putteth an edge
upon anger, as much, or more, than the hurt itself; and therefore,
when men are ingenious in picking out circumstances of contempt,
they do kindle their anger much: lastly, opinion of the touch[585]
of a man’s reputation doth multiply and sharpen anger; wherein the
remedy is, that a man should have, as Gonsalvo was wont to say, “Telam
honoris crassiorem.”[586] But in all refrainings of anger, it is the
best remedy to win time, and to make a man’s self believe that the
opportunity of his revenge is not yet come; but that he foresees a time
for it, and so to still himself in the mean time, and reserve it.
To contain anger from mischief, though it take hold of a man, there be
two things whereof you must have special caution: the one, of extreme
bitterness of words, especially if they be aculeate and proper,[587]
for “communia maledicta”[588] are nothing so much; and, again, that in
anger a man reveal no secrets, for that makes him not fit for society:
the other, that you do not peremptorily break off in any business in a
fit of anger; but, howsoever you show bitterness, do not act any thing
that is not revocable.
For raising and appeasing anger in another, it is done chiefly by
choosing of times when men are frowardest and worst disposed to incense
them; again, by gathering (as was touched before) all that you can
find out to aggravate the contempt: and the two remedies are by the
contraries; the former to take good times, when first to relate to a
man an angry business, for the first impression is much; and the other
is, to sever, as much as may be, the construction of the injury from
the point of contempt; imputing it to misunderstanding, fear, passion,
or what you will.
LVIII.—OF VICISSITUDE OF THINGS.
Solomon saith, “There is no new thing upon the earth;”[589] so
that as Plato[590] had an imagination that all knowledge was but
remembrance, so Solomon giveth his sentence, “That all novelty is but
oblivion;”[591] whereby you may see, that the river of Lethe runneth
as well above ground as below. There is an abstruse astrologer that
saith, if it were not for two things that are constant (the one is,
that the fixed stars ever stand at like distance one from another, and
never come nearer together, nor go further asunder; the other, that
the diurnal motion perpetually keepeth time), no individual would last
one moment; certain it is, that the matter is in a perpetual flux, and
never at a stay. The great winding-sheets that bury all things in
oblivion, are two,—deluges and earthquakes. As for conflagrations and
great droughts, they do not merely dispeople, but destroy. Phaeton’s
car went but a day; and the three years’ drought in the time of
Elias,[592] was but particular,[593] and left people alive. As for the
great burnings by lightnings, which are often in the West Indies,[594]
they are but narrow;[595] but in the other two destructions, by deluge
and earthquake, it is further to be noted, that the remnant of people
which happen to be reserved, are commonly ignorant and mountainous
people, that can give no account of the time past; so that the oblivion
is all one, as if none had been left. If you consider well of the
people of the West Indies, it is very probable that they are a newer,
or a younger people than the people of the old world; and it is much
more likely that the destruction that hath heretofore been there, was
not by earthquakes, (as the Egyptian priest told Solon, concerning the
Island of Atlantis,[596] that it was swallowed by an earthquake), but
rather that it was desolated by a particular deluge, for earthquakes
are seldom in those parts; but, on the other side, they have such
pouring rivers, as the rivers of Asia, and Africa, and Europe, are but
brooks to them. Their Andes, likewise, or mountains, are far higher
than those with us; whereby it seems, that the remnants of generations
of men were in such a particular deluge saved. As for the observation
that Machiavel hath, that the jealousy of sects doth much extinguish
the memory of things,[597] traducing Gregory the Great, that he did
what in him lay to extinguish all heathen antiquities, I do not find
that those zeals do any great effects, nor last long; as it appeared in
the succession of Sabinian,[598] who did revive the former antiquities.
The vicissitude, or mutations, in the superior globe, are no fit matter
for this present argument. It may be, Plato’s great year,[599] if the
world should last so long, would have some effect, not in renewing
the state of like individuals (for that is the fume[600] of those
that conceive the celestial bodies have more accurate influences upon
these things below, than indeed they have), but in gross. Comets, out
of question, have likewise power and effect over the gross and mass
of things; but they are rather gazed, and waited upon[601] in their
journey, than wisely observed in their effects, especially in their
respective effects; that is, what kind of comet for magnitude, color,
version of the beams, placing in the region of heaven, or lasting,
produceth what kind of effects.
There is a toy,[602] which I have heard, and I would not have it given
over, but waited upon a little. They say it is observed in the Low
Countries (I know not in what part), that every five and thirty years
the same kind and suit of years and weather comes about again; as great
frosts, great wet, great droughts, warm winters, summers with little
heat, and the like; and they call it the prime. It is a thing I do
the rather mention, because, computing backwards, I have found some
concurrence.
But to leave these points of nature, and to come to men. The greatest
vicissitude of things amongst men, is the vicissitude of sects and
religions; for those orbs rule in men’s minds most. The true religion
is built upon the rock; the rest are tossed upon the waves of time. To
speak, therefore, of the causes of new sects, and to give some counsel
concerning them, as far as the weakness of human judgment can give stay
to so great revolutions.
When the religion formerly received is rent by discords, and when the
holiness of the professors of religion is decayed and full of scandal,
and, withal, the times be stupid, ignorant, and barbarous, you may
doubt the springing up of a new sect; if then, also, there should arise
any extravagant and strange spirit to make himself author thereof; all
which points held when Mahomet published his law. If a new sect have
not two properties, fear it not, for it will not spread. The one is the
supplanting or the opposing of authority established, for nothing is
more popular than that; the other is, the giving license to pleasures
and a voluptuous life; for as for speculative heresies (such as were in
ancient times the Arians, and now the Arminians),[603] though they work
mightily upon men’s wits, yet they do not produce any great alterations
in states, except it be by the help of civil occasions. There be three
manner of plantations of new sects: by the power of signs and miracles;
by the eloquence and wisdom of speech and persuasion; and by the
sword. For martyrdoms, I reckon them amongst miracles, because they
seem to exceed the strength of human nature; and I may do the like of
superlative and admirable holiness of life. Surely, there is no better
way to stop the rising of new sects and schisms, than to reform abuses;
to compound the smaller differences; to proceed mildly, and not with
sanguinary persecutions; and rather to take off the principal authors,
by winning and advancing them, than to enrage them by violence and
bitterness.
The changes and vicissitude in wars are many, but chiefly in three
things: in the seats or stages of the war, in the weapons, and in the
manner of the conduct. Wars, in ancient time, seemed more to move from
east to west; for the Persians, Assyrians, Arabians, Tartars (which
were the invaders), were all eastern people. It is true the Gauls
were western; but we read but of two incursions of theirs, the one to