V.

FRANCIS BACON, LORD VERULAM.

1560-1626.

FRANCIS BACON, born Jan. 1560-1, was the youngest son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. His grave and thoughtful habit in childhood, and his power of minute and detailed observation, gave token of his future intellectual eminence. It is told of him that he would steal away from his companions at play to study the singular echo in a brick conduit near his father's house, of which he speaks in one of his celebrated works. He matriculated Fellow Commoner at Trinity College, Cambridge, at the early age of twelve. In 1576 his father, having in view for him a public career, sent him to Paris in the employment of the Ambassador, Sir Amyas Paulett. But on the death of his father, finding himself left with only a slender fortune, he was compelled to enter the profession of the law, and was admitted barrister in 1582. Two years afterwards he entered the House of Commons as Member for Melcombe Regis.

For many years to come he was compelled to toil in a profession in which his heart was not. He writes to Burleigh, 'that he had contemplative ends as vast as his civil ends were moderate, for he had taken all knowledge to be his province;' and to the Queen, 'my mind turns upon other wheels than those of profit.' It might have been expected that Bacon's acknowledged talents, and his family connection with the Cecils, would have led him early to preferment. He attached himself however to the rival party at the Court of Queen Elizabeth, and found in its chief, the Earl of Essex, a warm and indefatigable friend, though an unsuccessful patron. The part which Bacon afterwards took in the prosecution

of Essex is one of the most vexed questions of his history, and perhaps the hardest part of his conduct to explain or justify. Promotion was slow in reaching him, and scarcely came until the new reign had begun, but when it came it was rapid; he did not rise to be Attorney-General till 1613, and in March 1616-7 he received the Great Seal. He was created successively Baron Verulam and Viscount St. Alban.

He was disgraced on a charge of judicial corruption, but the extent of his culpability has been greatly exaggerated by party malice. A cold, caught in the process of an experiment to test the preserving qualities of snow, carried him off in April, 1626.

Bacon had wasted, in the pursuit of professional preferment, powers which were worthy to have been better employed. Yet he has left behind him a name which is hardly second to any in the annals of philosophy, as the inaugurator or restorer of the Inductive Method in Science. His eloquence and his far-reaching thoughts have powerfully affected both his own and succeeding generations, and the splendour of his style has given irresistible power to his ideas.

He wrote many works both in Latin and English; of the latter, the principal are, Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Essays Civil and Moral, History of the Reign of King Henry the Seventh, and The New Atlantis.

1. Use of Reason in Religion.

THE use of human reason in religion is of two sorts: the former, in the conception and apprehension of the mysteries of God to us revealed; the other, in the inferring and deriving of doctrine and direction thereupon. The former extendeth to the mysteries themselves; but how? by way of illustration, and not by way of argument. The latter consisteth indeed of probation and argument. In the former we see God vouchsafeth to descend to our capacity, in the expressing of his mysteries in sort as may be sensible

unto us; and doth grift his revelations and holy doctrine upon the notions of our reason, and applieth his inspirations to open our understanding, as the form of the key to the ward of the lock. For the latter, there is allowed us an use of reason and argument, secondary and respective, although not original and absolute. For after the articles and principles of religion are placed and exempted from examination of reason, it is then permitted unto us to make derivations and inferences from and according to the analogy of them, for our better direction. In nature this holdeth not; for both the principles are examinable by induction, though not by a medium or syllogism; and besides, those principles or first positions have no discordance with that reason which draweth down and deduceth the inferior positions. But yet it holdeth not in religion alone, but in many knowledges, both of greater and smaller nature, namely, wherein there are not only posita but placita; for in such there can be no use of absolute reason. We see it familiarly in games of

wit, as chess, or the like. The draughts and first laws of the game are positive, but how? merely ad placitum, and not examinable by reason; but then how to direct our play thereupon with best advantage to win the game, is artificial and rational. So in human laws there be many grounds and maxims which are placita juris, positive upon authority, and not upon reason, and therefore not to be disputed: but what is most just, not absolutely but relatively, and according to those maxims, that affordeth a long field of disputation. Such therefore is that secondary reason, which hath place in divinity, which is grounded upon the placets of God. Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning.

2. 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 transcendences 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 Salomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and Adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needle-works 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. Essays and Counsels, Civil and Moral.

3. Poesy.

POESY is a part of learning in measure of words for the most part restrained, but in all other points extremely licensed, and doth truly refer to the imagination; which, being not tied to the laws of matter, may at pleasure join that which nature hath severed, and sever that which nature hath joined; and so make unlawful matches and divorces of things; Pictoribus atque poetis, &c. It is taken in two senses in respect of words or matter. In the first sense it is but a character of style, and belongeth to arts of speech, and is not pertinent for the present. In the latter it is (as hath been said) one of the principal portions of learning, and is nothing else but feigned history, which may be styled as well in prose as in verse.

The use of this feigned history hath been to give some shadow of satisfaction to the mind of man in those points wherein the nature of things doth deny it, the world being in proportion inferior to the soul; by reason whereof there is, agreeable to the spirit of man, a more ample greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety, than can be found in the nature of things. Therefore, because the acts or events of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical. Because true history propoundeth the successes and issues of actions not so