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THE ENGLISH ESSAYISTS.

ESSAYS, CIVIL AND MORAL.

[FRANCIS BACON.*

OF TRUTH.

"WHAT is truth?" said jesting Pilate;+ and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be that delight in giddiness; and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting. And though the sect 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 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 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

BORN 1561: DIED 1626.]

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 day-light, that doth not show the masks, and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candlelights. 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, in great severity, called

* “His philosophical genius, and the force of his lan-poesy, "vinum dæmonum;" because it filleth the guage, gave him a greater advantage even than his learning, while his keen perception of the true and beautiful, and his analytic powers, have made him the marvel, delight, and despair of succeeding essayists."-Devey.

"Who is there that, upon hearing the name of Lord Bacon, does not instantly recognise everything of genins the most profound, everything of literature the most extensive, everything of discovery the most penetrating, everything of observation on human life the most distinguished and refined?"-Burke in speech on the Impeachment of Warren Hastings.

"In Bacon's Essays the superiority of his genius

appears to the greatest advantage; the novelty and depth of his reflections often receiving a strong relief from the triteness of the subject. The volume 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 overlooked before. This, indeed, is a characteristic of all Bacon's writings, and is 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."-Dugald Stewart. ↑ John xviii. 38.

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 affec-
tions, 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
The first
sovereign good of human nature.
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. First He breathed
light upon the face of the matter, or chaos; then
He breathed light into the face of man; and still

* Gen. ii. 7.

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." Groans and convulsions, and a discoloured face, and friends weeping, and blacks, and obsequies, and the like, show death terrible. It is worthy the observing, that there is no passion in the mind of man so weak, but it mates and masters the fear of death: and there

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: "It 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 below" so always, that this prospect before death is no such terrible enemy, when a man 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 honour of man's nature; and that mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of 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 Montaigne saith 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." +

OF DEATH.

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,

* The celebrated French essayist, and styled the father of essay-writing as we now know it-born 1533; died 1592.

† Luke xviii. 8.

hath so many attendants about him, that can win the combat of him. Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honour aspireth to it; grief flieth to it; fear pre-occupieth 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. Nay, Seneca adds, niceness and satiety; "Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris; mori velle, non tantum fortis, aut miser, sed etiam fastidiosus potest." A 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." Tiberius in

dissimulation; as Tacitus saith of him; "Jam Tiberium vires et corpus, non dissimulatio, deserebant." Vespasian in a jest; sitting upon the stool; "Ut puto, Deus fio." Galba with a sentence; "Feri, si ex re sit populi Romani;" holding forth his neck. Septimius Severus in despatch; "Adeste, si quid mihi restat agendum :" and the like. Certainly the Stoics bestowed 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." It 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 that is 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 dolours of death: but above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is "Nunc dimittis;' "when 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."

OF UNITY IN RELIGION.

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

* In allusion to the song of Simeon, Luke ii, 29.

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 are 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 humour; 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;"* another saith, "Ecce in penetralibus;" + that 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 an heathen come in, 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."§ It is but a light thing to be vouched in so serious a manner, 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-dance || of 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 outward peace of the Church distilleth into peace of conscience; and it turneth the labours of writ

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ing and reading of controversies into treatises of mortification and devotion.

Concerning the bonds 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." Peace is not the matter, but following and party. Contrariwise, certain Laodiceans,† and 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 arbitrement be tween 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:" and 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 colours: whereupon he saith, "In veste varietas sit, scissura non sit;" they 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 novitiates, et oppositiones falsi nominis scientiæ."§ Men 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

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peaces or unities: the one, when the peace is grounded but upon an implicit ignorance; for all colours 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; they 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, or like unto it; that is, to propagate religion by wars, or by sanguinary persecutions to force consciences; except be in cases of overt scandal, blasphemy, or intermixture of practice against the state; much less to nourish seditions; to authorise 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:

"Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum." What would he have said if he had known of the massacre in France,+ or the powder-treason‡ of England? He would have been seven times more epicure and atheist than he was: for as the temporal sword is to be drawn with great circumspection, in cases of religion; so it is a thing monstrous to put into the hands of the common people. Let that be left unto the Anabaptists and other furies. It was great blasphemy, when the devil said, "I will ascend, and be like the Highest;" but it is greater blasphemy to personate God, and bring Him in saying, "I will descend, and be like the prince of darkness." And what is it better to make the cause of religion to descend to the cruel and execrable actions of murdering princes, butchery of people, and subversion of states and governments? Surely, this is to bring down the Holy Ghost, instead of the likeness of a dove, in the shape of a vulture or raven: and to set, out of the bark of a Christian Church, a flag of a bark of pirates and assassins, Therefore it is most necessary, that the Church by doctrine and decree; princes by their sword; and all learnings, both Christian and moral, as by their mercury rod: do damn and send to hell

* Dan. ii. 33, 41.

The massacre of the Huguenots on St Bartholomew's Day, August 24, 1572, when about 60,000 persons perished.

The Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

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for ever those facts and opinions, tending to the support of the same; as hath been already in good part done. Surely in counsels concerning religion, that counsel of the apostle would be prefixed; "Ira hominis non implet justitiam Dei." And it was a notable observation of a wise father, and no less ingenuously confessed; That those which held and persuaded pressure of consciences, were commonly interested therein themselves for their own ends.

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." 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." 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, 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 favour. Yet, even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols: and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured 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 odours, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.

* "The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God."-James i. 20.

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 labours; 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." A man shall see, where there is a house full of children, one or two of the eldest respected, and the youngest made wantons;+ 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 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 to discord when they are men, and disturbeth families. The Italians make little difference between children and nephews, or near kinsfolks; but so they be of the lump they care not, though they pass not through their own body. And, to say truth, in nature it is much a like matter; insomuch that we see a nephew sometimes resembleth an uncle, or a kinsman, more than his own parent; as the blood happens. Let parents choose betimes the vocations and courses they mean their children should take: for then they are most flexible: and let them not too much apply themselves to the disposition of their children, as thinking they will take best to that which they have most mind to. It is true, that if the affection or aptness of the children be extraordinary, then it is good not to cross it: but generally the precept is good, "Optimum elige, suave et facile illud faciet consuetudo." Younger brothers are commonly

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fortunate, but seldom or never where the elder are disinherited.

OF MARRIAGE AND SINGLE LIFE

He that hath wife and children, hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men: which both in affection and means have married and endowed the public. Yet it were great reason, that those that have children should have greatest care of future times; unto which they know they must transmit their dearest pledges. Some there are, who though they lead a single life, yet their thoughts do end with themselves, and account future times impertinences. Nay, there are some other, that account wife and children but as bills of charges. Nay more, there are some foolish rich covetous men, that take a pride in having no children because they may be thought so much the richer. For perhaps they have heard some talk, Such a one is a great rich man; and another except to it, Yea, but he hath a great charge of children: as if it were an abatement to his riches. But the most ordinary cause of a single life is liberty; especially in certain self-pleasing and humorous minds, which are so sensible of every restraint, as they will go near to think their girdles and garters to be bonds and shackles. Unmarried men are best friends, best masters, best servants, but not always best subjects; for they are light to run away; and almost all fugitives are of that condition. A single life doth well with churchmen: for charity will hardly water the ground, where it must first fill a pool. It is indifferent for judges and magistrates for if they be facile and corrupt, you shall have a servant five times worse than a wife. For soldiers, I find the generals commonly, in their hortatives, put men in mind of their wives and children. And I think the despising of marriage amongst the Turks maketh the vulgar soldiers more base. Certainly, wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity; and single men, though they be many times more charitable, because their means are less exhaust; yet, on the other side, they are more cruel and hardhearted, good to make severe inquisitors, because their tenderness is not so oft called upon. Grave natures, led by custom, and therefore constant, are commonly loving husbands: as was said of Ulysses, "Vetulam suam prætulit immortalitati." Chaste women are often proud and froward, as presuming upon the merit of their chastity. It is one of the best bonds, both of chastity and obedience, in the wife, if she think her husband wise; which she will never do if she find him jealous. Wives are young men's mistresses; companions for middle age; and old men's

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