INTRODUCTION. CHAPTER I. WHAT BACON WAS HIMSELF. 'I NEVER LOOK,' says Montaigne, upon an author be they such as write of virtue and of actions, but I curiously endeavour to find out what he was himself." This hint, useful for the students of any book, is especially useful for those that want to understand Bacon's Essays, for they spring directly out of Bacon's life. They are not the results of his reading, nor the dreams or theories of his philosophy; they are the brief jottings of his experience of men and things. On this ground he tells the Prince he can commend them: he has endeavoured to make them, not vulgar, but of a nature whereof a man shall find much in experience, little in books, so as they are neither repetitions nor fancies. Moreover, the experience of the author's old age, as well as that of his youth, finds condensed expression in the little volume of the Essays: for, besides the fact that they embody the Antitheta, which he is known to have collected during his youth or early manhood, the first edition was published when he was thirty-six, the second when he was fiftytwo, the third when he was sixty-four, so that the different editions cover the whole period of his active life. Nor again need we suspect that in the Essays we have, not 'Florio's Montaigne, p. 411. the true Bacon, but an artificial essayist, wishing to found a literary reputation, or a reputation for morality or statesmanship. Such a suspicion might attach to some of his more formal compositions; but it is out of place here, and it is disproved by internal evidence. For the Essays are strewn thick with Bacon's household words, with maxims, arguments and illustrations, to be found elsewhere in letters to friends, in charges to judges, in parliamentary or legal speeches, in diaries and the like, as well as in his formal philosophic works. Sometimes, though rarely, we find here a notion in its germ developed and matured in Bacon's later works; more often these terse pages give us a condensation of some old familiar, oft-repeated thought, abridged here almost to the excess of obscurity, because the writer has repeated it so often that he thinks we must be, by this time, in his confidence, able to catch his meaning from a bare hint. But whether pruned or germinating, the thoughts are the thoughts of Bacon; hints of his life's experience, certain brief notes of it, set down rather significantly than curiously—that is, thinking of meaning more than of style. Of no other of Bacon's works can it be said so truly that what he was, they are. Bacon's habit of thinking with a pen in his hand has been kind to us for it has photographed his portrait for us. Perhaps no man ever made such a confidant of paper as he did. He might have said with Montaigne, 'I speak unto paper as to the first man I meet.' Not that he ever rambles or chats colloquially or egotistically on paper as Montaigne does: the difference between the two is very striking. Montaigne lets us into all his foibles: Bacon either describes his character as that of a Prophet of Science, or suppresses the description on second thoughts with a-de nobis ipsis silemus. 'My thoughts,' says the genial rambler, 'slip from me with as little care as they are of small worth': but the philo sopher has no thoughts of small worth': With me it is thus, and, I think, with all men in my case; if I bind myself to an argument, it loadeth my mind, but if I rid myself of the present cogitation, it is rather a recreation. Some counsellor he must have to whom he may disburden his thoughts. He often speaks, and with something like pathos, of the value of a friend in helping one to clear one's thoughts, and of his own friendless and solitary condition in his arduous search after truth. A man were better relate himself to a statua than to let his thoughts pass in smother, and Bacon's statua was pen and paper. Perhaps some dim sense of his own principal deficiency was one reason why Bacon so systematically related himself to paper. Writing, he said, maketh an exact man; and exactness, as he knew, was not a strong point with him. He was singularly inexact, and by nature indifferent to details; and however strenuously he may have laboured to remedy this defect, yet a defect it always remained, seriously influencing his philosophic investigations, his statesmanship, and his morals. De minimis non curat lex,' said King James good-humouredly of his great Chancellor; and the Chancellor goodhumouredly admits the justice of the charge. He was by nature indifferent to small things; but he strove to remove this inexactness, and one of his remedies was the abundant use of writing. Writing seemed to Bacon profitable for all things. No course of invention, he said, can be satisfactory unless it be carried on in writing.1 But it was not for great inventions merely for every kind of work, philosophic, political, private, be it an onslaught on the ancient philosophy, or a speech in parliament, or a council meeting, or an interview with some great lord or lady, Bacon in each case begins by relating himself to paper. Even if his object was no Novum Organum, Aphorism CI. more than to win credit at the expense of some legál rival by being more round or resolute, or to exchange his shy and nervous manner for a more confident carriagefor each and all of these things Bacon did not think it amiss to take counsel with paper.1 Hence it comes to pass that, though throughout the whole of the Essays one can scarcely find a word about the writer, yet they really make up a kind of autobiography. The very names, and perhaps the order of the Essays, in the earlier and later editions, tell the story of youth passing into age, and the student making way for the statesman. In the edition of 1597 the student is predominant. Studies lead the way, and the few essays that follow in that short edition turn almost all upon the subjects that would interest an ordinary student or gentleman leading a private life-Discourse, Followers, Suitors, Expence, Health, Honour. The only two that have any savour of the politician, Faction and Negociating, come last in order, and they are short and incomplete. Passing to the edition of 1612, we find the first place occupied by Religion; but it is religion treated from the statesman's point of view, as the most interesting subject in the politics of the day. But in 1625 the old man, drawing near his grave while the work of his life is yet unaccomplished, is driven back on that which he had made the object of the fresh ambitions of his hopeful youth. Death comes near the beginning, but not first : the first place is given to Truth. And so the final edition of the Essays of the author of the Instauratio Magna will See p. xlix., also Life, Vol. vii. p. 197, 'Everybody prepares himself for great occasions. Bacon seems to have thought it no loss of time to prepare for small ones too.' See also Mr. Spedding's note on the Temporis Partus Masculus as an 'experiment' in 'a spirit of contemptuous invective,' Works, Vol. iii. p. 525; 'To assist his memory and perhaps also to excite his thoughts, he was in the habit of jotting down in common-place books such reflexions and suggestions as occurred to him on the sudden.' begin for all posterity with the indignant protest against the indolence of mankind, who question Nature in jest, and I will not believe that the Truth-Nature's answer-is attainable, if they will but wait to be taught. What is Truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Thus, then, the 'Essays contain an abridgment of Bacon's life, the essence of his manners, his morals, and his politics, tinged throughout with his philosophy: and, in order thoroughly to understand the Essays, we must endeavour to understand their author as a philosopher, a politician, and a moralist, or—to return to Montaigne, with whom we set out-' we must curiously endeavour to find out what he was himself.' Multum incola: my soul hath long dwelt with those that are enemies unto peace—this is the text that Bacon himself has given us as the key-note of his life.1 No other words are so often on his lips as these. He is a pilgrim in an unfriendly land, a stranger to his work; his occupations are alien to his nature. He was intended to be a Frophet of Science, mouthpiece of the discoveries of Time, and fate has diverted him to the petty details of a lawyer's, or a courtier's, or a statesman's life. Whether engaged in writing the histories of monarchs, or preparing devices for the royal pleasure, in legal practice, in parliamentary business, in drawing up royal proclamations, in giving judgments from the bench, in discussing the highest matters of national policy, or defending the pettiest rights of the royal prerogative, it is always the same; Bacon is still multum incola, not at home in his work, a Prophet who has missed his vocation. I think no man may more truly say with the Psalmist, Multum incola fuit anima mea, than myself: for I do confess, since I was of any understanding, my mind hath been in 1 Bacon never uses these words in their full force. He means that he dwells amid alien occupations. |