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the kingdom of Philosophy and not to play a part in civil life. "I found my zeal set down as ambition, my life past the prime, my weak health chiding me for delay, and my conscience warning me that I was in no way doing my duty in omitting such services as I could myself unaided perform for men, while I was applying myself to tasks that depended upon the will of others; and, therefore, I at once tore myself away from all those thoughts and in accordance with my former resolution I devoted my whole energy to this work," i.e., to the Interpretation of Nature.

§ 13 THE "DISCOURSE ON THE UNION"

In speaking of "putting his ambition on his pen" Bacon probably had in his mind the Advancement of Learning, the first book of which is supposed to have been written this year (1603). At this time he also wrote the brief Proem on the Interpretation of Nature in which he propounds his new philosophical mission, apologising for having temporarily deserted it on the plea that public duties had appeared to demand that sacrifice.

The apologetic part of the proem has been quoted above (see p. 28); but the latter part, in which he reviews the obstacles in the way of his philosophic projects, and his plans for surmounting them, is no less worthy of study; and it comes fitly here because it shows how his philosophic plans pervaded his whole life, and influenced both his political views and his applications to individual friends and patrons whom he regarded as likely to forward the great cause of Science.

"Nor am I discouraged from it because I see in the present time some kind of impending decline and fall of the knowledge and erudition now in use.

"Not that I apprehend any more barbarian invasions unless possibly the Spanish empire should recover its strength, and after crushing other nations by arms should itself sink beneath its own weight; but from the civil wars which may be expected I think (judging from certain fashions which have come in of late) to spread through many countries, from the malignity of religious sects, and from those compendious artifices and devices which have crept into the place of solid erudition I augured a storm not less fatal for literature and science. Against these evils the Printing-press is no security. And doubtless these hostile influences are destined to overwhelm that fair-weather learning, which needs the nursing of luxurious leisure and the sunshine of reward and praise, and which can neither withstand the shock of adverse opinion nor escape the imposture of qucakery.

"Far otherwise is it with Science, whose dignity is fortified by works of use and power. Therefore to the injuries that might be wrought by Time I give no heed. As for the injuries that might proceed from men, they trouble me not. For if any one charge me with seeking to be wise overmuch, I answer simply that whereas in practical life there is a place for modesty, in philosophy there is no place for aught save truth. But if any one call on me for works and that at once, I say, and without any imposture, that a man in my position, not yet past middle life, retarded by ill health, who with his hands full of business, and without light or guidance, has entered upon an argument of the utmost obscurity, has done enough if he constructs the machine, though he may never set it in. motion." 1

After protesting that works, though they will ultimately be attained, must not be sought at once, and that he must not be called on to make definite promises as forecasts of results, nor to deviate from his prescribed course, he continues thus :

"My plan of publication is as follows. Those writings which aim at securing a response from the minds of others, and at purging, so to speak, the threshing-floor of the understanding, are to be published to the world at large; the rest are to be passed from hand to hand with selection and judgment.

"I am not ignorant indeed that it is a stale trick for impostors to reserve some secrets, which are no whit better than those which they offer to the public. But in my case this resolve is not the result of imposture, but of a sober forethought. For I see that both the Formula of the Interpretation of Nature and the discoveries thereby made, will be quickened and preserved in the guardianship of a few selected minds.

"This however is not my affair, for I take no thought for anything that depends on things external. I am not chasing after fame, I am not attracted by the ambition of founding a sect after the manner of heresiarchs; and the mere notion of aiming at private gain from so vast an undertaking seems to me as absurd as it is disgraceful. Enough for me the consciousness of well-deserving, and those practical results which Fortune herself is powerless to prevent."

Notwithstanding his resolution to "meddle as little as possible with the King's cause and to follow his private thrift and practice," Francis (now Sir Francis) Bacon does not seem to have felt precluded from tendering the King political advice.

1 Spedding, iii. 519.

There were some points in the new Sovereign's characterand those the most obvious on a short acquaintance-which might naturally lead Bacon to take a favourable view of the King's political future. James was learned, open to new ideas, and averse to intolerance. These characteristics might be revealed in a few hours. It needed months or years to reveal the King's fatal deficiency in earnestness, his inconstancy of purpose, his inability to sympathise with an English House of Commons, and his want of political foresight. Even a cool observer might therefore have augured well at first concerning the new reign ; and Bacon, in spite of all his professions of philosophic coolness, was one of the most blindly sanguine of observers. It is this excess of hopefulness-this determination not only to make the best, but to see the best, of everything-which explains, more adequately than any hypothesis of deliberate flattery, the language of adulation in which he addressed the King in the earlier years of his reign. Perhaps Bacon never, to the last, thoroughly realised the inherent weakness of James's character; perhaps he found it impracticable to discontinue the habit once formed, and perceived that flattery was necessary in approaching a Sovereign who mistook deference for devotion; be the cause what it may, he never tendered counsel to the King without disguising it in obsequiousness; and James, in his lips, is always a sovereign incomparable, not to be mentioned in the same breath with any other except Solomon, the Prinum Mobile, and God.1

With one at all events of James's political aspirations Bacon 1 James himself did not shrink from mentioning himself in a most irreverent juxtaposition with Christ (see below, p. 280): and compare his verses composed on the comet that appeared at the Queen's death:

"Thee to invite the great God sent his star,
Whose friend and nearest kin good princes are."

(Gardiner, History, iii. 295.)

Possibly Bacon's language in this respect, would not be found, not much, if at all, worse than that of many of the King's flatterers; but it is sometimes extremely repulsive. See p. 183, where he says to James: "I will make two prayers unto your Majesty as I use to do to God Almighty, when I commend to Him His glory and cause." And elsewhere he illustrates three requests which he makes to the King by reference "to the three petitions of the Litany-Libera nos, Domine; parce nobis, Domine; exaudi nos, Domine."

could heartily sympathise. The union of England and Scotland was at this time a main object of the new Sovereign; and Bacon, whose theory was that no empire should be "nice in point of naturalisation"1 seconded the King's efforts in a Brief Discourse touching the Happy Union of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland. This treatise, said to have been printed in 1603, embodies one of Bacon's favourite doctrines, viz.: that certain Axioms of what he calls Prima Philosophia, are as applicable to politics as to natural philosophy.

There is a great affinity, he says, between the rules of Nature and the true rules of policy. The Persian magic, in old days, was nothing but an application of the contemplation of Nature to politics; for indeed the celestial bodies and the heavens in their relations with the earth and sea, exhibit the relations between king and subjects. Everything in Nature has a private and a public affection; as, for example, iron has a private amity with the loadstone, but a public and general affection for the earth. In small matters, the private; in large, the public affection must be obeyed. As in Nature, so in kingdoms, there may be "compositio," i.e. union without a new form, or " mistio," i.e. union under a new form. The former is the easier, but the latter, the Roman system of "commistio," is the wiser and happier. The hand of man can in a short time bind the graft to the stock ("compositio"); but it must be left to Time and Nature to convert contiguity into continuity. Another necessary condition is that the lesser must be merged in the greater; else there will be defection, as in the days when the ten tribes of Israel revolted from the King of Judah. The hint as to the need of time may be illustrated by Bacon's letter to the Earl of Northumberland in the April of this year (1603), "He (the King) hasteneth to a mixture of both kingdoms and nations faster perhaps than policy will conveniently bear."

1 Essays, xxix. 151.

2 Spedding, iii. 90.

3 Essays, xxix. 156.

§ 14 BACON'S ADVICE ON CHURCH POLICY

The approaching Hampton Court Conference (deferred to January, 1604,) between the Bishops and Puritans drew from Bacon a treatise on the Pacification and Edification of the Church. It was written after he had received from the King a gracious recognition of his treatise on the Union of the Kingdoms; but the exact date of composition is uncertain. It was, however, "presented to the King at his first coming in;" 1 and an early date is almost necessitated by internal evidence. Bacon is here exhibited speaking his own mind freely, and no longer under the pressure of the anti-Puritan influence of Elizabeth. In the Advertisement touching Church Controversies (1589) he had gone as far as he dared in the direction of the Puritans; but now, in ignorance of the attitude that James might take, amid a general anticipation of change, and with a not unnatural expectation that a Scotch King would be free from the prejudices of Anglican Ecclesiasticism, he goes very much further indeed.

He advocates reform in the Church, as a remedy no less necessary in ecclesiastical than in civil matters, and especially seasonable in "the spring of a new reign"; for in Church government, as in civil government, there may be variety according to time, place, and circumstance. A set form of prayer appears to him desirable, but it would be well to discontinue the use of the term "Priest" and the General Absolution.

"Taking the Absolution, it is not unworthy consideration whether it may not be thought unproper and unnecessary; for there are but two sorts of Absolution, both supposing an obligation precedent; the one upon an Excommunication, which is religious and primitive; the other upon Confession and Penance, which is superstitious, or at least positive; and both particular, neither general. Therefore since the one is taken away, and the other hath his proper case, what doth a general Absolution, wherein there is neither Penance nor Excommunication precedent? And surely I may think this at the first was allowed in a kind of spiritual discretion, because the Church thought the people could not be suddenly weaned from their conceit of assoiling, to which they had been so long accustomed."

1 Spedding, Works, iii. 102.

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