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ESSAYS OR COUNSELS

CIVIL AND MORAL.

TO MR. ANTHONY BACON, HIS DEAR BROTHER.

LOVING AND BELOVED BROTHER,

I do now like some that have an orchard ill neighboured, that gather their fruit before it is ripe, to prevent stealing. These fragments of my conceits were going to print; to labour the stay of them had been troublesome, and subject to interpretation; to let them pass had been to adventure the wrong they might receive by untrue copies, or by some garnishment which it might please any that should set them forth to bestow upon them. Therefore I held it best discretion to publish them myself, as they passed long ago from my pen, without any farther disgrace than the weakness of the author. And as I did ever hold, there might be as great a vanity in retiring and withdrawing men's conceits, except they be of some nature, from the world, as in obtruding them; so in these particulars I have played myself the inquisitor, and find nothing to my understanding in them contrary or infectious to the state of religion or manners, but rather, as I suppose, medicinable. Only I disliked now to put them out, because they will be like the late new half-pence, which though the silver were good, yet the pieces were small. But since they would not stay with their master, but would needs travel abroad, I have preferred them to you that are next myself; dedicating them, such as they are, to our love, in the depth whereof, I assure you, I sometimes wish your infirmities translated upon myself, that her majesty might have the service of so active and able a mind; and I might be with excuse confined to these contemplations and studies, for which I am fittest: so commend I you to the preservation of the divine Majesty.

Your entire loving Brother,

From my chamber at Gray's-Inn,

this 30th of January, 1597.

FRAN. BACON.

TO MY LOVING BROTHER, SIR JOHN CONSTABLE, KNIGHT.

My last Essays I dedicated to my dear brother, Mr. Anthony Bacon, who is with God. Looking amongst my papers this vacation, I found others of the same nature: which if I myself shall not suffer to be lost, it seemeth the world will not, by the often printing of the former. Missing my brother, I found you next; in respect of bond both of near alliance, and of strait friendship and society, and particularly of communication in studies: wherein I must acknowledge myself beholden to you. For as my business found rest in my contemplations, so my contemplations ever found rest in your loving conference and judgment. So wishing you all good, I remain

1612.

Your loving brother and friend,

FRAN. BACON.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE MY VERY GOOD LORD THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, HIS GRACE, LORD HIGH ADMIRAL OF ENGLAND.

EXCELLENT LORD,

Solomon says, "A good name is as a precious ointment;" and I assure myself such will your Grace's name be with posterity. For your fortune and merit both have been eminent: and you have planted things that are like to last. I do now publish my Essays; which of all my other works have been most current for that, as it seems, they come home to men's business and bosoms. I have enlarged them both in number and weight; so that they are indeed a new work. I thought it therefore agreeable to my affection and obligation to your Grace, to prefix your name before them both in English and in Latin : for I do conceive, that the Latin volume of them, being in the universal language, may last as long as books last. My Instauration I dedicated to the king: my History of Henry the Seventh, which I have now also translated into Latin, and my portions of Natural History, to the prince: and these I dedicate to your Grace; being of the best fruits, that by the good increase which God gives to my pen and labours I could yield. God lead your Grace by the hand. 1625.

Your Grace's most obliged and faithful servant,
FRAN. ST. ALBAN.

I. OF TRUTH.

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WHAT is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would | self, teacheth, that the inquiry of truth, which is the not stay for an answer. Certainly there be that love-making, or wooing of it; the knowledge of delight in giddiness; and count it a bondage to fix truth, which is the presence of it; and the belief a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as of truth, which is the enjoying of it; is the sovein acting. And though the sects of philosophers of reign good of human nature. The first creature of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discours- God, in the works of the days, was the light of the ing wits, which are of the same veins, though there sense; the last was the light of reason; and his be not so much blood in them as was in those of sabbath work ever since is the illumination of his the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and Spirit. First he breathed light upon the face of labour which men take in finding out of truth; nor the matter or chaos; then he breathed light into the again, that when it is found, it imposeth upon men's face of man; and still he breatheth and inspireth thoughts; that doth bring lies in favour: but a na- light into the face of his chosen. The poet that tural though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of beautified the sect, that was otherwise inferior to the later schools of the Grecians examineth the mat- the rest, saith yet excellently well: "It is a pleater, and is at a stand to think what should be in it, sure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed that men should love lies; where neither they make upon the sea: a pleasure to stand in the window of for pleasure, as with poets; nor for advantage, as a castle, and to see a battle, and the adventures with the merchant; but for the lie's sake. But I thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to the cannot tell this same truth is a naked and open standing upon the vantage ground of truth, a hill day-light, that doth not show the masks, and mum- not to be commanded, and where the air is always meries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately clear and serene; and to see the errors, and wanand daintily as candle-lights.) Truth may perhaps derings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below:" come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by so always, that this prospect be with pity, and not day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond with swelling or pride. Certainly it is heaven upor carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. on earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of any man doubt, that if there were taken out of truth. 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 poesy, vinum dæmonum; because it filleth the 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 affections, yet truth, which only doth judge it

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 allay 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 Montagne 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, | preparations made it appear more fearful. Better "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."

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II. 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, 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 therefore death is no such terrible enemy, when a man hath so many attendants about him, that can win the combat of him. venge triumphs over death; love slights it; honour aspireth to it; grief flieth to it; fear pre-occupateth 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

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 fixt 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."

III. 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 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 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 Re- 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 a 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 matter, 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 Heretiques." For indeed every sect of them hath a

diverse posture or cringe by themselves, which cannot but move derision in worldlings and depraved politics, 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 writing and reading of controversies into treatises of mortification and devotion.

Concerning the bounds 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 the 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 an arbitrement between 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 novitates, 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 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 it be in cases of overt scandal, blasphemy, or intermixture of practice against the state; much less to nourish seditions; to authorize 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 cascs of religion; so it is a thing monstrous to put it 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 murthering 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 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.

IV. REVENGE.

Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. For as for the first wrong, it doth but offend the law; but the revenge of that wrong putteth the law out of office. Certainly in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior: for it is a prince's part to pardon. And Solomon, I am sure, saith, "It is the glory of a man to pass by an offence." That which is past is gone and irrevocable, and wise men have enough to do with things present and to come : therefore they do but trifle with themselves that labour in past matters. There is no man doth a wrong for the wrong's sake; but thereby to purchase himself profit, or pleasure, or honour, or the like. Therefore why should I be angry with a man for loving himself better than me? And if any man should do wrong, merely out of ill-nature, why? yet it is but like the thorn or brier, which prick or scratch, because they can do no other. The most tolerable sort of revenge is for those wrongs which there is no law to remedy: but then let a man take heed the revenge be such as there is no law to punish; else a man's enemy is still beforehand, and it is two for one. Some, when they take revenge, are desirous the party should know whence it cometh this is the more generous; for the delight seemeth to be not so much in doing the hurt, as in making the party repent: but base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark. Cosmus, duke of Florence, had a desperate saying against perfidious or neglecting friends, as if those wrongs were unpardonable. "You shall read," saith he, "that we are commanded to forgive our enemies ; but you never read, that we are commanded to forgive our friends." But yet the spirit of Job was in a better tune; "Shall we," saith he, "take good at God's hands, and not be content to take evil also ?" And so of friends in a proportion. This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge, keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal, and do well. Public revenges are for the most part fortunate: as that for the death of Cæsar; for the death of Pertinax; for the death of Henry the Third of France; and many more: but in private revenges it is not so; nay rather, vindictive persons live the life of witches; who as they are mischievous, so end they unfortunate.

V. OF ADVERSITY.

It was an 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.

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VI. OF SIMULATION AND DISSIMULATION.

Dissimulation is but a faint kind of policy, or wisdom; for it asketh a strong wit, and a strong heart, to know when to tell truth, and to do it. Therefore it is the weaker sort of politicians that are the great dissemblers.

Tacitus saith, Livia sorted well with the arts of her husband, and dissimulation of her son; attributing arts or policy to Augustus, and dissimulation to Tiberius. And again, when Mucianus encourageth Vespasian to take arms against Vitellius, he saith; We rise not against the piercing judgment of Augustus, nor the extreme caution or closeness of Tiberius. These properties of arts or policy, and dissimulation or closeness, are indeed habits and faculties several and to be distinguished. For if a man have that penetration of judgment as he can discern what things are to be laid open, and what to be secreted, and what to be showed at half-lights, and to whom and when, which indeed are arts of state, and arts of life, as Tacitus well calleth them, to him a habit of dissimulation is a hinderance and a poorness. But if a man cannot obtain to that judgment, then it is left to him, generally, to be close and a dissembler. For where a man cannot choose, or vary in particulars, there it is good to take the safest and wariest way in general; that cannot well see.

like the going softly by one Certainly the ablest men that

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