CHAPTER VI.

DEFICIENCIES OF LEARNING IN THE TIMES OF ELIZABETH AND JAMES I. "Defect is a reptile that basely crawls upon the earth." — Bacon.
" What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason ! how infinite in faculty ! . . . Yet man delights not me. . . . What should such fellows as I do, crawling between heaven and earth ? " — Hamlet.
BEFORE trying to follow Bacon in his inquiries as to the deficiencies of learning, let us reflect upon the Herculean nature of the work which he was proposing to himself. He might satirise his own vast speculations ; he may even have been perfectly well aware that his enthusiastic visions could never be realised, but a universal reformation was his aim, and who will say that he failed to achieve it ?
Those " good old times " in which Bacon lived were any- thing but good ; they were coarse, ignorant, violent, " dark and dangerous." The Church, Bacon said, " which should be the chief band of religion, was turned to superstition, or made the matter of quarrelling and execrable actions ; of murdering princes, butchery of people, and subversion of states and governments. The land full of oppression, taxation, privileges broken, factions desperate, poverty great, knowledge at a stand- still, learning barren, discredited by the errors, contentions, conceit, and fantastical pedantry of so-called learned men. The literary spirit of the ancients dead. At the universities and schools words were taught, but not matter. He even questions whether it would not be well to abolish the scholastic system altogether, and to set up a new form of teaching. The list of sciences taught, and which he finds to be full of follies and errors, or totally deficient, forbids any wonder at his verdict, that, whereas present methods were rotten and useless to advance learning, the old fabric should be rased to the ground, and a new Solomon's House erected.
150 FEANCIS BACON
But is it not a little surprising that, even if Bacon could thus speak in his early days of the ignorance, the folly, the futility of the learning of his time, the dulness, apathy, or ignorant bigotry of his contemporaries, the degradation of the stage, the decay of the wisdom of the ancients, the barrenness of the modern muse, yet that we should find him reiterating, with even more forcible expressions, these same opinions at the very end of his life ? In his crowning work, the De Augmentis, published in 1623, he is as earnest in his strictures on the prevailing learning (or the want of it) as he was in the days of his youth. Was he a detractor, or a boastful, self-satisfied man, who could see no good in any works but his own ? Or was he a rash and inconsiderate speaker, uttering words which do not bear the test of time, or which were confuted and rejected by his contemporaries ? We turn to the short life of Bacon by his secretary, Dr. Rawley, a man who does not waste words, and whose statements have become classical as they are unassailably accurate : —
" He was no dashing * man, as some men are, but ever a eountenancer and fosterer of another marts parts. Neither was he one that would appropriate the speech wholly to himself, or delight to outvie others. He contemned no marts observations, but would light his torch at every marts candle. His opinions were for the most part binding, and not contradicted by any, tohich may well be imputed either to the well-weighing of his sentences by the scales of truth and reason, or else to the reverence and estimation in which he was held. I have often observed, and so have other men of great account, that if he had occasion to repeat another marts words after him, he had an use and faculty to dress them in better vestments and apparel than they had before, so that the author should find his own speech much amended, and yet the substance of it still retained, as if it had been natural to him to use good forms, as Ovid spake of his faculty of versifying :
' Et quod tentabam scribere, versus erat.' " |
* Rawley means, not a man who used his wit to put others out of countenance. See Costard in Love's Labour's Lost, V. 2 : " An honest man, look you, and soon dashed." Spedding, Works, II. 12.
| " He lisped in numbers, for the numbers came." (Pope's Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot.)
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 151
Bacon's most malicious enemies have not attempted to contradict or disprove these statements by one of his closest friends and faithful " servants." Why, then, does Bacon entirely ignore the unparalleled outburst of learning, the prodigious strides made in every department of science, the spirit of inquiry and of longing after truth, the galaxy of wits and poets, the " giant mmds " with whom, so we are told, the age was teeming ? We might read Bacon's acknowledged works from cover to cover without suspecting that such persons as Hooker or Ben Jonson, Burton, Spenser, or Shakspere ever existed. Comprehensive as are his works, summing up the deficiencies of knowledge in all its departments, we find no allusion to that marvellous phenomenon — patent apparently to all eyes but those of Bacon himself — of the sudden and simultaneous revival of learning which began to take place immediately after he left Cambridge at the age of fifteen.
The great impediments of knowledge, and the points which, in Bacon's judgment, rendered his times so unfavourable for its advance, were, in the first place, the scattering or " diversion " of clever men, the want of "a collection of wits of several parts or nations," and of any system by which wits could contribute to help one another, and mutually to correct errors and customary conceits.
This deficiency was the cause of another impediment to knowledge, the lack, namely, of any means for keeping "a succession of wits of several times, whereby one might refine the other." There was no system by which newly acquired knowledge could be handed down, for the manner of the traditions of learned men " was utterly unfit for the amplifica- tion of knowledge."
The result of such impediments in and before Bacon's time was, he said, such as to lead men to conclude, either that knowledge is but a task for one man's life (and then vain was the complaint that life is short and art is long) ; or else that the knowledge that now is, is but a shrub and not that tree which is never dangerous, but where it is to the purpose of knowing good and evil in order that man may choose the evil. An aspiration which rises into desire rather to follow one's own will .than to obey, contains, he says, a manifest " defection " or imperfection.
152 FRANCIS BACON
He is also of opinion that " the pretended succession of wits," such as it is, has been ill-placed, and that too much absolute reliance was put upon the philosophy of one or two men to the exclusion of others. Also that the system of handling- philosophy by parts, and not as a whole, was very injurious, and a great impediment to knowledge. He deprecates "the slipping-off particular sciences from the root and stock of universal knowledge," quoting the opinion of Cicero, that eloquence is not merely " a shop of good words and elegancies,* but a treasury and receipt of all knowledges ; " and the example of Socrates, who, instead of teaching " an universal sapience and knowledge, both of words and matter, divorced them, and withdrew philosophy, leaving rhetoric to itself, which thereby became a barren andunnoble science."
Bacon argues that a specialist in any branch of science, "whether he be an oculist in physic, or perfect in some one tittle of the law, may prove ready and subtle, but not deep or sufficient, even in the one special subject which is his province ; because it is a matter of common discourse of the chain of sciences, how they are linked together" inasmuch as the Grecians, who had terms at will, have fitted it of a name of circle learning.
Although Bacon speaks of this Chain of Sciences as a matter of common discourse, it seems to have been so only in the circle of his own friends. To forge such links and to weld such a chain was, it would seem, one part of his method, and the con- ventional design which represents this linking together of universal knowledge, both earthly and heavenly, is to be seen on a vast number of the title-pages and ornamental designs of the books which emanated from Bacon's great society for the advancement of learning. As a rule these chains will be found in combination with a figure of Pan, or Universal Nature, with the head of Truth, or universal philosophy or religion, and with the peculiar wooden scroll or frame-work which we interpret as figuring " the Universal Frame of the World."
Since then the end and scope of knowledge had been so generally mistaken that men were not even well advised as to what it was that they sought, but wandered up and down in the
* Compare Bacon's own Promus of Formularies and Elegancies.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 153
way, making no advance, but setting themselves at last, " in the right way to the wrong place," Bacon takes in hand the business of demonstrating " what is the true end, scope or office of knowledge, and to make, as it were, a calendar or inventory of the wealth, furniture, or means of man, according to his present estate, as far as it is known." By this means, he adds, " I may, at the best, give^some awaking note, both of the wants in man's present condition, and the nature of the supplies to be wished ; though, for mine own part, neither do I much build upon my present anticipations, neither do I think ourselves yet learned or wise enough to wish reasonably ; for, as it asks some knowledge to demand a question not impertinent, so it asketh some sense to make a wish not absurd."
The Interpretation of Nature, from which these passages are taken, includes only a fragment of the " inventory," which is to be found in the form of a separate " catalogue " of one hundred and thirty histories which are required for the equipment of philosophy. It is also in the Be Augmentis, which is in truth an Exposition of the Deficiencies which Bacon noted in every conceived branch of science and literature, and of the practical means which he proposed to adopt for the supply of these tremendous gaps in the chain of universal knowledge.
The " Catalogue of Histories " was published at the end of the Novum Organum in 1620, but it appears to have been written much earlier ; for a few lines at the end show that at the time when he penned this list he was looking forward to the accomplishment of all that is included in it. It seems im- probable that he would, so late in life, have published this catalogue, had it been merely the airy fabric of a vision. On the other hand, there are works extant which were first pub- lished anonymously during his life-time, and which answer admirably to the titles of many of these " particular histories," which, we observe, are not necessarily to be original works, but "collections" or contributions to the equipment of philosophy. In other words, they were to be the. furniture and household stuff of the new Solomon's House.
It will be profitable to spend a few minutes in noting with Bacon some of the departments of knowledge which he found to be either totally uncultivated, or so weakly handled as to be unproductive. In so doing we must not overlook the fact that,
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154 FRANCIS BACON
in every case where he notes such deficiencies, he makes, as he says, some effort toward supplying them.
Unless we take some pains to follow Bacon's meaning and line of argument, it is impossible to realize what is meant by his statement that truth was barren of fruits fit for the use of man. Modern teaching and traditions as to the marvellous revival of learning in the time of Elizabeth have blinded us to the fact that knowledge was at the very lowest ebb. The first attempt made by William Grocyn, in the end of the fifteenth century, to introduce the study of Greek into the University of Oxford, was regarded as an alarming innovation, and roused strong opposition. His distinguished pupil, John Colet, after- wards Dean of St. Paul's, and founder of St. Paul's School, was exposed to the persecution of the clergy through his promotion of a spirit of inquiry and freedom of thought and speech. We read that in Paris, about the same time,*:::" " The Juris Consult, Conrad Heresbach, affirms that he heard a monk announce from the pulpit, ' A new language, called Greek, has been found, against which strict precautions are requisite, as it propagates all kinds of heresie. A number of persons have already pro- cured a work in that tongue called the New Testament — a book full of briars and vipers. As to Hebrew, all those who learn it turn Jews at once.' "
These dense prejudices were about to be dissipated by the creation, by Francis I., of the Royal College. Its professors were to be nominated by the King, regardless of university degrees, and the college was to be the refuge of free-thinkers of all countries. Such an innovation was reprobated by the pedants of the old school, and a tempest of wrath and indigna- tion greeted the enterprise. Beza, syndic of the theological faculty, who later on headed a religious persecution, was a leader in this contest, and in this curious struggle we trace the germ of the conflict between Faith and Science, between Church and State, a conflict which Bacon spent his life in trying to appease and terminate.
Beza pretended that religion would be lost if Greek and Hebrew were taught by others than theologians. Were not all
* Francis I. and His Times. 0. Coignet. Translated by F. Twemlow Bentley. London, 1888.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 155
Bibles brought from that heretical nest, Germany, or from the Jews ? The royal professors replied : We are not theologians, but grammarians and scholars. If you understand Greek and Hebrew, attend our classes and denounce our heresies ; but if you do not understand these languages, why interfere with us ?
Parliament was puzzled what to do. Theology and Hebrew were dead letters to it. Iving Francis was in fits of laughter at its evident embarrassment. Finally it decided to wash its hands of the affair, and to leave the disputants to settle it amongst themselves. Francis now completed the discomfiture of his adversaries by nominating as royal printer of Hebrew and Latin classics Robert Estienne, the distinguished editor and typo- grapher. Theologians detested Estienne, because his translations of Holy Writ corrected their falsifications and misrepresenta- tions, and exposed their ignorance and insincerity. His first translation of the Hebrew Bible appeared in 1532. It was denounced as sacrilegious, and its author as meriting the stake. During the King's absence from Paris, Estienne's house was ransacked, and he was forced to fly. But on the King's return Estienne was reinstated. Search was made throughout Europe and Asia for the old manuscripts, and these Estienne re- produced, the King superintending, with great interest, the beauty and perfection of type, destined, as these books were, to enrich his magnificent library at Fontainebleau.
Amongst the distinguished men who, in these early days, were connected with the Royal College of Francis I. are the names of men whose works were afterwards studied and quoted by Bacon and his own school, and whose successors seem to have become some of the most able and earnest workers on behalf of his far more liberal and far-reaching secret society. It is easy to see that Bacon, during his residence in the French court, must almost certainly have been drawn into the society of many members of this Royal College, whose duty it was to bring before the notice of the King " all men of the greatest learning, whether French or foreigners."
But, in spite of this Royal College, learning had not made much advance, even in France. Although Bacon must have witnessed the working of the college when he was in Paris, yet he says nothing in its praise. The method was as faulty as ever, although speech, and consequently thought, had become freer.
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Bacon's chief complaint against the " schoolmen," and against the ancient philosophies, was not so much regarding their matter as their method. The matter had become mere words, and the continual repetition of the same words made even " truth itself tired of iteration." He rightly complained that the writers of his time only looked out for facts in support of pre- conceived theories, or else, where authority and prejudice did not lead the way, constructed their theories on a hasty and unmethodical examination of a few facts collected at random.* In either case they neglected to test or verify their generalizations, whilst they wasted time and study in drawing out, by logical arguments, long trains of elaborate conclusions, which, for aught they knew, might start from erroneous theories.
The whole of Bacon's teaching, then, goes to enforce upon his disciples the necessity of examining and proving every statement, trusting to no " authority," however great, whose assertions or axioms cannot stand the test of microscopic inspec- tion, or which are not seen to be " drawn from the very centre of the sciences."
" How long," he asks, " shall we let a few received authors stand up like Hercules' Columns, beyond which there shall be no sailing or discovery in science ? " He proceeds to indicate the various parts of his method by which learning was to be collected, rectified, and finally stored up in the " receptacles V which he would have provided in " places of learning, in books, and in the persons of the learned." In other words, he would provide schools, colleges, and libraries ; he would facilitate printing, the publication of good books, and the institution of lectures, with paid professors of all arts and sciences. We look around, and are overwhelmed with admiration of all that has been accomplished upon Bacon's method. But he did not live to see it. Doubtless his life was one long series of disappoint- ments, lightened only by his joyous, hopeful spirit, and by the absolute conviction which possessed him that he had truth on his side, and that " Time, that great arbitrator, would decide " in his favour.
" For myself," he says, " I may truly say that, both in this
* See an excellent and very clear exposition of this in " Francis Bacon" by Prof. Fowler.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 157
present work, and in those I intend to publish hereafter, I often advisedly and deliberately throw aside the dignity of my name and wit (if such thing be) in my endeavour to advance human interests; and being one that should properly, perhaps, be an architect in philosophy and the sciences, I turn common labourer, hodman, anything that is wanted ; taking upon myself the burden and execution of many things which must needs be done, and which others, through an inborn pride, shrink from and decline." *
Dr. Rawley records Bacon's gentle regret that he that should be an architect in this erecting and building of the new philosophy " should be forced to be a workman and a labourer, to dig the clay and make the brick, and, like the Israelites, to gather the stubble and straw over all the fields, to burn the bricks withal. But he knoweth that, except he do it, nothing will be done : men are so set to despise the means of their own good. And as for the baseness of many of the experiments, as long as they be God's works, they are honourable enough ; true axioms must be drawn from plain experience, and not from doubtful, and his course is, to make wonders plain, and not plain things wonders."
So, in the thousand paragraphs of the Natural History, or Sylva Sylvarum, we find each paragraph recording, not mere speculations, or repetitions of theories or conclusions supposed to have been established by former philosophers, but reports of experiments (sometimes very strange and original) made always with a definite object, and generally accompanied by some remarks explaining the causes of the phenomena observed. Bacon is never ashamed to admit his own ignorance of causes, and nothing which tends to their recovery is, in his eyes, insignificant or unimportant.
" It is," he says, " esteemed a kind of dishonour to learning, to descend into inquiries about common and familiar things, except they be such as are considered secrets, or very rare." Plato, he says, ridiculed this "supercilious arrogancy " ; and " the truth is that the best information is not always derived from the greatest examples, but it often comes to pass that mean and small things discover great, better than great can discover
* De Aug. VII. 1.
158 FEANCIS BACON
the small, as that secret of nature, the turning of iron touched with the loadstone to the earth, was found out in needles, and not in bars of iron."
The collector of facts he compares to the ant heaping up its store for future use. He does not despise the ant, but com- mends its intelligence, as superior to that of the grasshopper, which, like the mere talker, keeps up a chirping noise, but does no work. The notes which he collects in such a store as the Sylva Sylvarum (although, as we firmly believe, ambiguous in meaning, and in their more important bearings symbolical or parabolic) give a good idea of the want of observation and general ignorance in Bacon's times on matters with which children in the poorest schools are now made familiar. What- ever double purpose this work on Natural History may have had, these simple notes were offered to the public as interesting and instructive information, and as such were received by the learned in the seventeenth century.
For instance, we read that alkali or potash is used in making glass ; that airs may be wholesome or unwholesome ; that some flowers are sweeter than others ; that some, but not all, can be distilled into perfumes ; that some have the scent in the leaf, as sweetbriar,* others in the flower, as violets and roses ; that most odours smell best crushed or broken ; that excess in nourishment is hurtful — if a child be extremely fat it seldom grows very tall ; all mouldiness is a beginning of decay or putrefaction ; heat dries and shrivels things, damp rots ; some parts of vegetables and plants are more nourishing than others ; yolks of eggs are more nourishing than the whites ; soup made of bones and sinews would probably be very nourishing ; bubbles are in the form of a sphere,! air within and a little skin of water without. No beast has azure, carnation or green hair ; if mustard provoketh sneezing, and a sharp thing to the eyes, tears. Sleep nourishes — after-dinner sleep is good for old people. Boiling gives a bubbling sound ; mincing meat makes
* " The leaf of eglantine out-sweetened not thy breath." Cymb. IV. 2-
| See Emblems of a Bubble, in reference to the world.
J This is alluded to in Troilus and Cressida, I. 2, where Pandarus
says that they are laughing at the white hair on Troilus' chin, and
Cressida answers : " Ant had been a green hair, I should have laughed
too."
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 159
it easier for old teeth ; Indian maize when boiled is good to eat ; flax and white of eggs are good for wounds.
Now, although it is true that here is hardly one particular which is not turned to excellent account in the Shakespeare plays, and in many minor works of Bacon's time, it is impossible to ignore the fact that Bacon makes notes of these as things not generally known; that the book in which he registered them was not published until after his death, and then, as we are especially told, with the notes revised, or not arranged in the order in which they were written.
Amongst the commonplaces which we have enumerated, there are other statements incorrect as they are picturesque and poetical. Probably Bacon did not believe them himself ; they are often introduced with some such modification as "It may be that," or "It is said that." Thus we are told that gums and rock crystals are the exudations of stones ; that air can be turned into water, water into oil ; that the celestial bodies are most of them true fire or flames ; that flame and air do not mingle except for an instant, or in the vital spirits of vegetables and living creatures. Everywhere the Paracelsian and very poetical idea of the Vital Spirits of Nature is perceptible, and the whole of these notions are resolved into poetry in Shakespeare and elsewhere. It is not too much to say that there is in the plays hardly an allusion to any subject connected with science or natural history which is not traceable to some note in these commonplace books, the apparently dry records of disjointed facts or experiments.
Not only arts and arguments, but demonstrations and proofs according to analogies, he also " notes as deficient." And here is a point in which his observations are distinctly in touch with the Rosicrucian doctrines, or, to put it more accurately, a point in which the Rosicrucians are seen to have followed Baconian doctrines. For they made it a rule to accept nothing as scientific truth which did not admit of such proof and demonstration by experiment or analogy.
As an example of the deficiency in this quarter, Bacon gives the form and nature of light.* That no due investigation should have been made of light, he considers " an astonishing piece of
* Here, we think, is the customary double allusion, light being, in his symbolic language, synonymous with pure truth.
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negligence." Let inquiry be made of it, and, meanwhile, let it be set down as deficient. So of heat and cold, of flame, of dense things and rare, of the nature of sulphur, mercury, salt, and metals, the nature of air, of its conversion into water, and of water into oil ; almost everything, in fact, which we now call Natural Science, he either marks among the deficients, or as being handled in a manner of which he " prefers to make no judgment.'1
Since doubts are better than false conclusions, Bacon sets down a calendar of doubts or problems in nature as wanting, and probably few students of works of the class here indicated will find much difficulty in identifying the works written to supply these needs.
In short, Bacon shows that the Sciences, whether of natural philosophy, physics, or chemistry, were in a parlous state, full of barren doctrines, empty theories, and bootless inquisitions ; that if ever they were to be revived and made to bring forth fruits for the food of man, they must be "proyned" about the roots, nourished and watered, lopped of an infinite number of excrescences and useless branches, and grafted anew.
So with all the allied sciences of husbandry, horticulture, distillation, fermentation, germination, putrefaction, etc., we have but to consider the " experiments,' ' proposed or explained, in the Sylva Sylvarum (for the special use, as we believe, of Bacon's learned brotherhood or "Illuminati"), to realise the fact that the world (even the learned world) was indeed very ignorant, and that these scientific studies were part of the great " birth of time," the Renaissance, the seeds and weak begin- nings which time should bring to ripeness. Many of these observations are repeated in the Anatomy of Melancholy, which seems to be another " collection," this time the sweepings of Bacon's commonplace books on subjects medical and meta- physical ; a detailed examination of the mutual relations between mind and body, which are briefly treated of in the Advancement of Learning, and other places.
The History of Winds supplies particulars for all the poetic allusions to meteorological or nautical matters which are met with in the plays, poems, and emblem books of the time. Here it will be seen how weirdly and exquisitely these studies of meteorological facts are interwoven with metaphysical subtleties,
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 161
such as are met with in Macbeth and The Tempest. Meteorology and the " sane astrology " which Bacon finds to be a desidera- tum, mix themselves up with the science of medicine — in his time " forsaken by philosophy," "a weak thing, not much better than an empirical art," " a science more practised than laboured, more laboured than advanced ; the labours spent on it being rather in a circle than in progression."
As for the art of prolonging life, he " sets it down as deficient," and writes a book (apparently with a double meaning) on the subject. The History of Life and Death is bound up with the Rosicrucian New Atlantis and the Natural History, which we believe correspond with the Librum Naturae of the fraternity, and the simple remedies and recipes which Bacon prescribes and publishes stand as records of the elementary state of know- ledge in his time. Metaphysics lead to the consideration of the doctrine of dreams — " a thing which has been laboriously handled and full of follies." It is connected with the " doctrine of the sensible soul, which is a fit subject of inquiries, even as regards its substance, but such inquiries appear to me de- ficient." *
The knowledge of human nature, of men's wants, thoughts, characters, is also entirely neglected. "The nature and state of man is a subject which deserves to be emancipated and made a knowledge of itself." In the Sylva Sylvarum he devotes many paragraphs to preparations for advancing this much-neglected art, noting even the small gestures and tokens by which the body of man reflects and betrays the mind. These notes furnish a compendium of hints not only for the metaphysician, but also for the artist, the orator, and the actor ; there is hardly one which is not found used with effect in the Shakespeare plays.
Let us sum up briefly the deficiences in knowledge which, so far, we have learnt from Bacon to observe in the works of his predecessors, but which were being rapidly supplied during his life and in the succeeding generation : —
Natural Science,^ or Physics and Chemistry, with experi- ments and demonstrations — deficient.
* De Aug. IV. Spedding, IV. 372—379.
t See Advancement of Learning and De Augmentis ; Nov. Organum ; New Atlantis ; Sylva Sylvarum.
162 FRANCIS BACON
Natural History* excepting a few books of subleties, varieties, catalogues, etc. — deficient.
Horticulture and Husbandry, "\ totally or partially deficient.
Meteorology £ in all its branches — deficient.
Astronomy, § weak, with good foundations, but by no means sound.
Astrology, || not to be despised, but not practised so as to be useful or sane.
Medicine, $ Pathology and the Art of Prolonging life — deficient.
Metaphysics** or the Doctrine of the Human Soul, and of the influence of mind on body — deficient.
Physiognomy and Gestures, |f study of them — deficient.
In order to minister to the extreme poverty of science in all these departments, Bacon, as has been said, drew up a catalogue of 130 " Histories " which he found wanting, and which he strove, by his own exertions, and with help from friends, to furnish, or at least to sketch out.
Those who nourish the belief that, in the sixteenth century, the ordinary scribe or author could pick from casual reading, by intercourse in general society, or by his pennyworth of observa- tion, such a knowledge of scientific facts as is exhibited (though in a simple form) in the best plays of the time, will do well to consider this catalogue, and to reflect that the particulars in it are, for the most part, discussed as new and fruitful branches of information, or food for speculation, in the works of Bacon. To this consideration it would be well to add a study of the works of a similar description current before Bacon began to publish, and to see how much of the " popular science " which we connect with Bacon was known, say, in the year 1575, beyond the walls of the monastery or the cell of the philosopher. Then see how far such knowledge reappears in any pre- Baconian poetry.
* Sylva Sylvarum ; New Atlantis ; Parasceve.
| Sylva Sylvarum ; Ess. Of Gardens ; Plantations.
t Nov. Org. ; Hist, of Winds ; Ebb and Flow of the Sea, etc.
§ Thema Coeli. || De Aug. ; Sylva Sylvarum.
% Hist. Life and Death, etc. ; Ess. Regimen of Health, Recipes, etc.
** Doctrine of the Human Soul ; De Aug., etc., etc.
tt De Aug. ; Sylv. Sylv.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 163
Bacon's method, says Spedding, in his dialogue with Ellis, " presupposed a History (or dictionary as you call it) of universal nature, as a storehouse of facts to work on." * In these words the speaker uses the term expressing the idea of Promus et Condus — the idea of a store from which things new and old should be drawn, of a store of rough material from which perfect pieces should be produced. Such a store he was himself en- gaged in making.
To Spedding's inquiry his interlocutor replies : " Bacon wanted a collection large enough to give him the command of all the Avenues to the secrets of nature." It almost seems as if Mr. Ellis were quoting from the Promus itself, where many hints seem to be given of Bacon's proposals for working his secret society, and where we find these entries : " Avenues — Secrett de Dieu ; Secrett de Dieu." Are not these secrets of God corre- spondent to the secrets of nature to which Bacon would open avenues ? Are they not the " things " known to the soothsayer who confesses, when taxed with his unusual knowledge :
" In nature's infinite book of secresy A little I can read."!
And we cannot fail to observe that the study of such things was attended with some perils to the student whose object was to keep them as much as possible out of sight and screened from hostile observation. The catalogue, instead of being in- corporated, as one would naturally expect, with the treatise itself, is detached from it, and sometimes omitted from the pub- lication. Some of the entries, moreover, are incomprehensible, excepting on the assumption that they, again, moralise two meanings in one word — of which more anon.
But we hear it said, " Grant that science, in modern accepta- tion of the term, was a new thing in Bacon's time, and that he held nearly every department in it to be deficient ; what of that? Grant that there was then no such thing as popular teaching on these subjects, and that all branches of science have made tremendous strides during the past century. The same argu- ments cannot apply to the literature of the sixteenth and seven- teenth centuries. Have we not all been taught that those were
* Spedding, Works, Preface to Parasceve. t Ant. and Cleo. I. 2.
164 FEANCIS BACON
the times when Spenser and Shakespeare grew to their full powers, Spenser representing England with its religious sense of duty combative ; Shakespeare, enabled by that English earnest- ness to speak through the highest poetry the highest truth ? That the depths were stirred, and the spirit of the time drew from the souls of men the sweetest music, ennobling and elevat- ing rough soldiers, mechanics, and country louts into poets of the highest degree ? "
But in truth Bacon condemned the literary part of the knowledge of his own time before he touched upon the scientific part, although, for convenience, the order is here reversed. The second book of the Advancement treats of " the Divisions of the Sciences." There " all human learning " is divided into History, Poesy, and Philosophy, with reference to the three intellectual faculties, Memory, Imagination, Reason, and we are shown that the same holds good in theology or divinity.
History he again divides into Natural and Civil (which last in- cludes Ecclesiastical and Literary History), and Natural History is subdivided into histories of generations and arts, and into Natural History, narrative and inductive. So we see that the science comes last in Bacon's contemplations and method, although, in the chair of sciences, it connects itself with the first part of human learning — history. But here at once he discovers a deficiency. "The history of learning — without which the history of the world seems to me as the statue of Polyphemus without the eye, that very feature being left out which marks the spirit and life of the person — I set down as wanting." As usual he gives a summary of the requisites for this work, and the best method of compiling such a history from the principal works written in each century from the earliest ages, "that by tasting them here and there, and observing their argument, style, and method, the literary spirit of each age may be charmed, as it were, from the dead."
Such a history would, he considers, greatly assist the skill of learned men. " It would exhibit the movements and perturba- tions which take place no less in intellectual than in civil matters. In short, it would be a step toward the true study of human nature," which was his aim.
Civil history, though pre-eminent amongst modern writings, he finds to be " beset on all sides by faults," and that there is
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 165
nothing rarer than a true Civil History, which he subdivides into Memorials, Commentaries, Perfect History, and Antiquities. " For memorials are the rough drafts of history, and antiquities are history defaced, or remnants of history, which, like the spars of a shipwreck, have recovered somewhat from the deluge of time."
No defects need be noticed in the annals, chronologies, regis- ters, and collections of antiquities, which he classes with " im- perfect histories." They are of their very nature imperfect, but they are not to be condemned like Epitomes, "things which have fretted and corroded the bodies of most excellent histories, and wrought them into unprofitable dregs." There are many collec- tions, annals, chronologies, chronicles, commentaries, registers, etc., which began to appear in Bacon's time, in accordance with his instructions and suggestions, if not with direct help from him.
" Just and perfect history is of three kinds, according to the object which it propoundeth or pretendeth to present ; for itpre- senteth either a time or a person or an action. The first of these we call Chronicles, the second Lives, and the third Narratives. Though the first be the most complete, and hath most glory, yet the second excelleth it in use, and the third in truth. For history of times representeth the greatness of actions, and the public faces and behaviour of persons ; it passeth over in silence the smaller events and actions of men and matters. But such being the workmanship of God, that He doth hang the greatest weight upon the smallest wires,* it comes to pass that such histories do rather set forth the pomp of business than the true and inward resorts (or springs) thereof. Insomuch that you may find a truer picture of human life in some satires than in such histories." But well-written "lives and histories are likely to be more purely true, because their argument is within the knowledge and observation of the writer.")* All three kinds of history are, nevertheless, " so full of many and great deficiencies," that he says : " Even to mention them would take too much time." He would himself have undertaken the business in good earnest if James had given him any encouragement. But in this, as in
* " Thus hast Thou hang'd our life on brittle pins.1' Translation of Psa. xc, " The whole frame stands upon pins." 2nd Henry IV., III. 2. t Advt. II. 1.
166 FRANCIS BACON
many other things, he failed to rouse the dull King, whom he vainly tried to make as wise as he thought himself. The frag- ment of the " History of Great Britain " hints at Bacon's efforts in this direction, and there are several large books which will probably some day be acknowledged as part of the " collections " made by Bacon, or under his direction, to this end.*
For Lives, he thinks it most strange that they have been so neglected, and counts them among the deficients.
Narrations and relations are also to be wished, since a good collection of small particulars would be as a nursery-ground, raising seedlings to plant when time will serve a fair and stately garden, f
Other parts of learning, as appendices to history — orations, letters, brief speeches or sayings and letters, he considers an important branch of history. "Letters are according to the variety of occasions, advertisements, advices, directions, proposi- tions, petitions, commendatory, expostulatory, satisfactory, of compliment, of pleasure, of discourse, and all other passages of action. And such as are written from wise men are, of all the words of man, in my judgment, the best, for they are more natural than orations and public speeches, and more advised than conferences or present speeches. So, again, letters of affairs, from such as manage them or are privy to them, are, of all others, the best instructions for history and, to a diligent reader, the best histories in themselves." J
Bacon's own letters are themselves a good illustration of his doctrine ; but there are other collections of letters, such as Sir Tobie Matthew's correspondence, with names and dates can- celled, and the collection by Howell, entitled Horce Eliance, which seem as if they had been written with a further purpose than that of mere correspondence between friend and friend. The vast chasm, in point of diction, between these and the letters written by ordinary persons of good breeding and education in Bacon's time, may be well gauged by a comparison with them of
* See " The Chronicles of the Kings of England from the Time of the Romans Government to the Death of King James." By Sir Samuel Baker. On the frontispiece of the third edition is a vignette of Verulam.
| Be Aug. II, 7. See, also, " The Collection of the History of England." Samuel Daniel, 3rd edn. 1636.
% Advt. II. 1.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 167
the sixteen folio volumes of Anthony Bacon's correspondence at the library belonging to Lambeth Palace, or the letters in the Cottonian and Hatton Finch collections at the British Museum.
Next, Bacon commends the collecting of apophthegms or witty sayings. " The loss of that book of Caesar's " is, he thinks, a misfortune, since no subsequent collection has been happy in the choice. His own collection, with the supplementary anecdotes, sometimes ranked as " spurious," still remain to us ; the former, we think, possessing a double value, inasmuch as it seems probable that, in one edition at least, it forms a kind of cipher or key to the meaning of other works.
As to the heathen antiquities of the world, "it is in vain to note them as deficient," for, although they undoubtedly are so, consisting mostly of fables and fragments, " the deficiency cannot be holpen ; for antiquity is like fame — caput inter nubile condit — her head is muffled from our sight."* He does not allude to his own Wisdom of the Ancients, or to other kindred works, which, although they seem to have been published later, yet bear traces of the more diffuse and cruder effusions of his pen — the early products of Bacon's youthful studies.!
He draws attention to the history which Cornelius Tacitus made, coupling this with annals and journals, which again he finds to be in his own day deficient.
We observe that no hint is dropped about Camden's Annals. The omission is the more significant, seeing that in that work we have before us Bacon's own notes and additions.
Now he passes on to "Memorials, commentaries, and regis- ters, which set down a bare continuance and tissue of actions and events, without the causes and pretexts, and other passages of action ; for this is the true nature of a commentary, though Caesar, in modest}^ mixed with greatness, chose to apply the name of commentary to the best history extant." J There are some " Observations on Caesar's Commentaries " § which are
* Advt. III. 1.
J See particularly Mystagogus Poeticus, or the Muses1 Interpreter, 2nd edn., much enlarged by Alexander Ross, 1648. t De Aug. II. 6. § Publised, Lowndes, 1609.
168 FRANCIS BACON
deserving of notice in connection with this subject, although they bear on the title-page the name of Clement Edmundes, yet that very title-page is adorned with a portrait which strikingly resembles portraits of Francis Bacon. Here he is as a lad of about sixteen years old, and the internal evidence of the work renders it highly probable that this was merely one of his many juvenile productions. Several other works of a similar nature, with some geographical manuals, such as " Microcosmus, or a Little Picture of a Great World," and large works, such as the " Discovery of Guiana " and "A History of the World " (in which history, politics, and personal adventure are largely intermixed with geography), began to make their appearance about this time, and assisted in completing Bacon's great plan for the dissemination of universal knowledge. He affirms, " to the honour of his times and in a virtuous emulation with antiquity, that this great Building of the World never had through lights made in it till the age of us and our fathers. For, although they had knowledge of the Antipodes, yet that might be by demonstration and not by fact, and if by travel, it requireth the voyage but of half the globe. But to circle the earth, as the heavenly bodies do, was not done nor attempted till these later times, and therefore these times may justly bear in their word not only plus ultra in precedence of the ancient non ultra, and imitabile fulmen in precedence of the ancient non imitabile fulmen, etc., but, likewise, imitabile caelum, in respect of the many memorable voyages, after the manner of heaven, about the globe of the earth."
He never loses sight of the great object he has at heart, of bringing lights into the darkness in which the world is lying ; he ever clings to his darling hope that the ad- vancement of universal knowledge may be made the means of " mingling heaven and earth." When considering the deficiencies not only of knowledge, but of language in which to express knowledge, it will not be amiss to draw attention to the words of Hallam concerning the works of Sir Walter Raleigh,* especially " The History of the World." The reader should reflect whether it is more probable that the adventurous soldier and busy man
* It is not unworthy of inquiry, Was Raleigh (whose name is variously spelt) any relation of the Dr. Rawley who was Bacon's chaplain and confidential secretary?
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 169
of the world should have been capable of writing such a book as the one in question (filled as it is with Baconian beauties of diction and sentiment), or that Bacon, visiting his interesting friend in the Tower, should have induced him to beguile the tedious day and drive away the heavy thoughts of care by writing or compiling, with his help, the work to which Sir Walter contributed the experience of his own travels, but for which Bacon himself furnished the plan, the erudition, and the diction.
" We should," says Hallam, " expect from the prison-hours of a soldier, a courtier, a busy intriguer in State affairs, a poet and a man of genius, something well worth our notice ; but hardly a prolix history of the ancient world, hardly disquisitions on the site of Paradise and the travels of Cain. The Greek and Roman story is told more fully and exactly than by any earlier English author, and with a plain eloquence which has given this book a classical reputation in our language. Raleigh has intermingled political reflections and illustrated his history by episodes from modern times, which perhaps are now the most interesting passages. It descends only to the second Macedonian war. There is little now obsolete in the words of Raleigh, nor to any great degree in his turn of phrase ; . . . he is less pedantic than most of his contemporaries, seldom low, never affected."
Not science only, or natural history, or the history of the world and of individuals, but arts and inventions of all kinds were, in Bacon's opinion, equally " at a standstill." "As to philosophy, men worship idols, false appearances, shadows, not substance ; • they satisfy their minds with the deepest fallacies. The methods and frameworks which I have hitherto seen, there is none of any worth, all of them carry in their titles the face of a school and not of a world, having vulgar and pedantical divisions, not such as pierce the heart of things."
Then, for the art of memory, " the inquiry seems hitherto to have been pursued weakly and languidly enough ; ... it is a
* Compare : " He takes false shadows for true substances." (Tit. And. iii. 2.) " Your falsehood shall become you well to worship shadows and adore false shapes," (Two Gent. Ver. iv. 1, 123—131.) Mer.Wiv. ii. 2, 215. Men Ven. iii. 2, 126—130 ; and comp. 1. 73—80. Richard II. ii. 2, 14. 1 Henry VI. ii. 3, 62, 63.
M
170 FRANCIS BACON
barren thing, as now applied for human uses. The feats of memory now taught, I do esteem no more than I do the tricks and antics of clowns and rope-dancers' matters* perhaps of strange- ness, but not of worth."
Passing from natural and physical science to philology, or, as Bacon calls it, " philosophic grammar," we again find it " set down as wanting." " Grammar," he says, " is the harbinger of other sciences — an office not indeed very noble, but very necessary, especially as sciences, in our age, are principally drawn from the learned languages, and are not learned in our mother's tongue. . . . Grammar, likewise, is of two sorts — the one being literary, the other philosophical." The first of these is used chiefly in the study of foreign tongues, especially in the dead languages, but " the other ministers to philosophy." This reminds him that Caesar wrote some books on " analogy," and a doubt occurs whether they treated of this kind of philosophical grammar. Suspecting, however, that they did not contain any- thing subtle or lofty, he takes the hint as to another deficiency, and thinks " of a kind of grammar which should diligently inquire, not the analogy of words with one another, but the analogy between words and things, or reason, not going so far as that interpretation which belongs to logic. Certainly words are the footsteps of reason, and the footsteps tell something about the body. . . . The noblest kind of grammar, as I think, would be this : If some one well seen in a number of tongues, learned as well as common, would handle the various properties of languages, showing in what points each excelled, in what it failed. For so, not only may languages be enriched by mutual exchanges, but the several beauties of each may be combined, as in the Venus of Apelles, into a most beautiful image and excellent model of speech itself, for the right expression of the meanings of the mind."
As in everything else which Bacon noted as unattempted or unachieved, we find him endeavouring to supply the deficiencies in language which were universal in his day. He does not hint that Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, and others had been for years pouring Latin words into our language, trying experiments in
* This line seems to throw light upon Petrucio's powers of vituperative rhetoric—" Hell rail in his rope tricks.'1'' (Tarn. Sh. i. 2.)
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 171
words which had never been tried before, coining, testing, and rejecting, in the same manner, precisely, in which Bacon himself was coining, testing, rejecting, or making current, the new words which he entered in his Promus. That he was coining, intentionally, we know from his habit of supplementing his new word with its nearest synonym, and also from the frequent recurrence of such expressions as " So I call it," " As it were," "As I term it," etc.
Bacon suggests * the making of " a store " of forms of speech, prefaces, conclusions, digressions, transitions, excusations, and a number of the kind, as likewise deficient. He subjoins specimens of these. " Such parts of speech answer to the vestibules, back-doors, ante-chambers, withdrawing-chambers, passages, etc., of a house, and may serve, indiscriminately, for all subjects. For as, in buildings, it is a great matter, both for pleasure and use, that the fronts, doors, windows, approaches, passages, and the like, be conveniently arranged, so, also, in a speech, such accessories and passages, if handsomely and skilfully placed, add a great deal, being both of ornament and effect to the entire structure." Surely he is here thinking of the construction of his Solomon's House. He then gives a few instances from Demosthenes and Cicero, having "nothing of his own to add to this part." Nothing, he means, which he chose to publish at that time, as a store of the kind. That he had it, and had used it in all his works for thirty or forty years, and with marvellous effect, we now know well from the internal evidence of those works. In the Promus is a consecutive list of one hundred and twenty-six short expressions of single words, and farther on eighty more, which are all to be found in the early Shakespeare plays, and more rarely elsewhere. Some of these, such as " O my L. S." (the " 0 Lord, Sir," of Love's Labour's Lost and AIVs Well), are dropped in later plays. But by far the larger number, as "Believe me," "What else?" 41 Is it possible ? " " For the rest," " You put me in mind," " Nothing less," " Say that," etc., are met with throughout all the works which will hereafter be claimed as Bacon's. Most of these expressions are now such familiar and household terms that it seems strange to imagine that three hundred years ago
* De Aug. VI. 3, 492.
172 FRANCIS BACON
they were not in everybody's mouth. What would be thought if it were found that any great orator of our own time had written down, intermixed with literary notes, which were care- fully preserved, such notes as these : " Will you see ? *• " You take it right,1' "All this while," "As is," "I object," "I demand," "Well," "More or less," "Prima facie," "If that be so," "Is it because?" "What else?" "And how now?" " Best of all," " I was thinking," " Say, then," " You put me in mind," " Good morning," " Good night " ? . Yet these are amongst the private notes " for store of forms and elegancies of speech." They are of the kind which Bacon, in his learned works, describes as deficient ; which, even in his last great work, the Be Augmentis, he still pronounces to be deficient and much needed for the building-up of a noble model of language. Can we doubt that in such collections as this we see Bacon in labourer's clothes, digging the clay and gathering the stubble from all over the desolate fields of learn- ing, to burn the bricks wherewith he would rebuild the temple of wisdom ?
Careful study and examination of these questions will surely prove that to Francis Bacon we owe, not only the grand specu- lative philosophy and the experimental science which are associated with his name, and a vast number of works un- acknowledged by him, though published during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but also the very language in which those books are written, the " noble model of language " which has never been surpassed, and which constitutes the finest part of the finest writing of the present day.
To return to our hasty sketch of deficiencies in grammar and philology, we find, as might be expected, that, inasmuch as words and graceful forms of speech were lacking, and the very machinery or organs of discourse imperfect, so " the proper rational method of discourse,* or rhetoric, for the transmission of knowledge, has been so handled as to defeat its object." Logicians, by their artificial methods, have " so forced the kernels and grains of the sciences to leap out, that they are left with nothing in their grasp but the dry and barren husks."
* " An honest method, as wholesome as sweet." (Ham. II. 2.)
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 173
Changing the metaphor, Bacon declares that he finds the road to knowledge abandoned and stopped up, and, setting himself to the task of clearing the way, he quotes Solomon as to the use of eloquence, and again enforces the necessity of making collections. This time they are to be collections of " illustrations " which shall consider the opposite sides of every question, and show that there is a good as well as a bad side to every proposition. "It is the business of rhetoric to make pictures of virtue and goodness that they may be seen. And a store of sophisms, or the colours of good and evil, should be made, so that when men's natural inclinations mutiny, reason may, upon such a revolt of imagination, hold her own, and in the end prevail." These " points and stings of things " are by no means to be neglected ; yet they, like the rest, are deficient.
The object of all this " provision of discourse " is to enable men readily to make use of their acquired knowledge. The system of noting, tabulation, and indexing which he enjoined, practised, and developed into a perfect system in his secret society is, he says, rather an exercise of patience, a matter of diligence, than of erudition. "Aristotle derided the sophists who practised it, saying that they did as if a shoemaker should not teach how to make a shoe, but should only exhibit a number of shoes of all fashions and sizes." Far otherwise said our Saviour, speaking of divine knowledge : " Every scribe that is instructed in the Kingdom of Heaven is like a householder that bringeth forth old and new store." His own notes were to him the store or Promus from which he drew. They correspond to the last collection, which he specially recommends, namely, " a store of commonplaces, in which all kinds of questions and studies, prepared beforehand, are argued on either side, and not only so, but the case exaggerated both ways with the utmost force of wit, and urged unfairly, and, as it were, beyond the truth." For the sake of brevity and convenience, these common- places should be contracted into concise sentences, " to be like reels of thread, easily unwound when they are wanted." These he calls the " antitheses of things," and, having a great many by him, he gives, "by way of example," forty-seven antitheta, which, " although perhaps of no great value, yet as I long ago prepared them, I was loth to let the fruit of my youthful
174 FEANCIS BACON
industry perish — the rather (if they be carefully examined) they are seeds only, and not flowers."
Such antitheta, pervading the whole of Bacon's works, indeed tending to the formation of the most remarkable points in his style, may equally well be seen in the plays and poetry of Shakespeare, whose " highly antithetical style " is the subject of comment by nearly every critic of the varied resources of his expressive diction.
From the discussion of words, phrases, life, and rhetoric (all of which he finds to be fundamentally defective), Bacon passes on to sound, measure, and accent ; explaining, as to novices in the art, the most elementary principles of elocution, rhythm, and prosody. " The sound belonging to sweetnesses and harshnesses, the hiatus caused by vowels coming together," the difference in the use of dipthongs in Greek and Latin, and some peculiarities in various languages — of these things he has soon " had more than enough,11 and he gladly turns to his congenial subject, Poesy.
Now on this score, at least, one might expect that he could congratulate his countrymen. But all that he is able to say is that " Poesy has produced a vast body of art, considered, not to the matter of it, but to the form of words." All words, no matter, nothing from the heart ! • Is this all that can be said for the poetry of an age which produced the Faerie Queene, The Shepherd's Calender, the Shakespeare plays, poems, and sonnets, the works of Ben Jonson, Marlowe, Middleton, Chapman, Webster, the hymns and spiritual songs of Herbert, Quarles, Withers, Cowley, Crashaw, and a host of " minor poets " ? Are we to believe that Bacon included these in his vast body of art considered, not in regard to the matter, but to the words of it ?
Poetry to be lovely must have matter as well as art. It should be the spontaneous overflow of a full mind, stored to the brim with " true history," with a knowledge of nature, and especially
* Compare : " Who will for a tricksy word defy the matter.'" (Merchant of Venice, III. 5.) "More rich in matter than in words." (Romeo and Juliet, II. 6.) " Words, words, mere words, nothing from the heart." (Troilus and Cressida, V. 3.) " More matter with less art." (Hamlet, II. 2.) " This nothing's more than matter." (Ibid. IV. 5.) " When priests are more in words than matter." (Lear III. 2 and IV. 6.)
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 175
of human nature ; for " by Poesy," says Bacon, " I mean here nothing else than feigned history."* Shakespeare formed the same estimate of true poetry :
Audrey. I do not know what poetical is ; . . . is it a true thing ?
Touchstone. No, truly, for the truest poetry is the most feigning, and what they swear in poetry may be said, as lovers, they do feign. . . . If thou wert a poet, I might have some hope thou didst feign ? |
Bacon reminds us more than once of all that poets feign J in their histories, but he fails not to show that " all invention " or imaginative power " is but memory" and that " a man is only what he knows." In vain would weaker wits endeavour to persuade us that " reading and writing come by nature," or that a man can write well about matters concerning which he can never have had the opportunity of duly informing himself. Poesy, indeed, being " free and licensed, may at pleasure make unlawful matches and divorces of things," but the poet must be acquainted with those things before he can either match or divorce them.
The first study of the poet should be history, "which is properly concerned with individuals, § and whose impressions are the first and most ancient guests of the human mind, and are as the primary material of knowledge." This is no passing thought of Bacon's, but a firm conviction, of which he set forth a visible illustration on the title-page of the Advancement of Learning. Here we see two pyramids, that on the right based upon Divinity, and rising into the study of human nature ; that on the left based on Philosophy, and issuing in History and Poetry. Bacon describes the process of poetic evolution :
" The images of individuals are received into the sense, and fixed in the memory. They pass into the memory whole, just as they present themselves. Then the mind recalls and reviews them, and, which is its proper office, compounds or divides the parts of which they consist. For individuals have something in common with each other, and again something different, and the composition of one characteristic with another is either according to the pleasure of the mind or according to the nature
* De Augmentis. "f As You Like It, III. 5.
X 3 Henry VI. I. 2. Merchant of Venice, V. 1, etc.
§ " The proper study of mankind is man."
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of things as it exists in fact. If it be according to the pleasure of the mind of the composer, and that the various characteristics of one person are mixed or compounded with those of another, then the work is a work of imagination ; which, not being bound by any law or necessity of nature, may join things which are never found together in nature, and separate things which in nature are never found apart."
Now, truly, Bacon realised the " tricks of strong imagination,"
" Shaping fantasies that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends,"
bodying forth the forms of things unknown, whilst the poet's
pen
" Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name." *
The anthithetical view of the question is best seen in Antony and Cleopatra, where Cleopatra, recalling the memory of Antony, " whole as it presents itself," is yet struck by the inadequacy of her efforts to combine so many noble features in one image :
" Nature wants stuff To vie strange forms with fancy, yet to imagine An Antony were nature's piece 'gainst fancy, Condemning shadows quite." f
"If, on the other hand, these same parts or characteristics of individuals are compounded or divided, as they really show themselves in nature, this is the business and duty of Reason. From these three fountains of Memory, Imagination, and Reason flow three emanations of History, Poesy, and Philosophy, and there cannot be more or other than these ; they even include Theology. For whether information enters or is conveyed into the mind by revelation or by sense, the human spirit is one and the same, and it is but as if different liquors were poured through different funnels into one and the same vessel."
He goes on to show that Poesy is to be taken in two senses, in regard to words or matter. " In the first sense it is but a kind of speech, verse being only a kind of style and having nothing to do with the matter or subject ; for true history niay be written in verse, and feigned history or fiction may be written in prose." J Bacon adds, in the De Augmentis, that in the " style
* See M. N. D., V. 1, 1—28. f Ant. and CI. V. 2. X Intellectual Globe.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 177
and form of words, that is to say, metre and verse, the art we have is a very small thing, though the examples are large and innumerable."
" The art which grammarians call Prosody should not be con- fined to teaching the kinds and measures of verse, but precepts should be added as to the kinds of verse which best suit each matter or subject." He shows how the ancients used hexameters, elegiacs, iambic and lyric verse, with this view. Modern imita- tion fell short, because, with too great zeal for antiquity, the writers tried to train the modern languages into ancient measures, incompatible with the structure of the languages, and no less offensive to the ear. " But for poesy, whether in stories or metre, it is like a luxuriant plant that cometh of the lust of the earth and without any formal seed. Wherefore it spreads everywhere, and is scattered far and wide, so that it would be vain to take thought about the defects of it." Yet he levels a parting shaft at these defects, observing that, although accents in words have been carefully attended to, the accentuation of sentences has not been observed at all.
Narrative Posey is a mere imitation of History, such as might pass for real, only that it commonly exaggerates things beyond probability.
Dramatic Poesy is History made visible, for it represents actions as if they were present, whereas History represents them as past.
Parabolic Poesy is typical History, by which ideas that are objects of the intellect are represented in forms that are objects of the sense.
As for Narrative or Heroical Poesy, " the foundation of it is truly noble, and has a special relation to the dignity of human nature. For as the sensible world is inferior in dignity to the rational soul, poesy seems to bestow upon human nature those things which history denies to it, and to satisfy the mind with the shadows of things when the substance cannot be obtained."
So, in his Device of Philautia, the soldier is made to say, " The shadows of games are but counterfeits and shadows, when in a lively tragedy a man's enemies are sacrificed before his eyes," etc.
Theseus has the same thought that poetry is the shadow of
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tilings. He does not despise the shadow when the substance cannot be obtained, although Hippolyta pronounces the rural play to be the silliest stuff that e'er she heard. He replies : " The best in this kind are but shadows, and the worst are no worse, if imagination mend them."*
Puck, too, in his apology for himself and his fellow-players, calls them shadows.
" And the reason why poesy is so agreeable to the spirit of man is that he has a craving for a more perfect order and more beautiful variety than can be found in nature since the fall. Therefore, since the acts and events of real history are not grand enough to satisfy the human mind, poesy is at hand to feign acts more heroical ; since the issues of actions in real life are far from agreeing with the merits of virtue and vice, poesy corrects history, exhibiting events and fortunes as according to merit and the law of Providence. Since true history wearies the mind with common events, poetry refreshes it by reciting things unexpected and various. So that this poesy conduces not only to delight, but to magnanimity and morality. Whence it may fairly be thought to partake somewhat of a divine nature, because it raises the mind aloft, accommodating the shows of things to the desires of the mind, not (like reason and history) buckling and bowing down the mind to the nature of things."'!
" By these charms and that agreeable congruity which it has with man's nature, accompanied also with music, to gain more sweet access, poesy has so won its way as to have been held in honour even in the rudest ages and among barbarous people, when other kinds of learning were utterly excluded."!
Can it be doubted that he intended so to use it in his own age, still so rude, though so self-satisfied ? In a previous chapter he has described Minerva as " forsaken," and he proposes " to make a Hymn to the Muses, because it is long since their rites were duly celebrated."§ Years before this he said the same in the Device of Philautia, which was performed before the Queen. A Hermit is introduced, who, in his speech, exhorts the Squire to persuade his master to offer his services to the Muses. "It is long since they received any into their court. They give alms continually at their gate, that many come to live upon, but few
* M. N. D. V. 2. f De Aug. II. 13.
X De Aug. II. 13, "Aye, much is the force of heaven-bred poesy." — Two G. Ver. III. 2. § Advt. L. I.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 179
have they ever admitted into their palace." Elsewhere he speaks of " the poverty of experiences and knowledge,"* " the poverty and scantiness'" of the subjects which till now have occupied the minds of men."|
And so in the Midsummer Night's Dream (V. 1) we find :
" The thrice-three Muses mourning for the death Of Learning, late deceas'd in beggary."
And the Princess in Love1 Labour s Lost (V. 2), exclaims, when the King and his masque and musicians depart :
" Are these the breed of wit so wondered at ? Well-liking wits they have ; gross, gross ; fat, fat. 0 poverty in wit, kingly-poor flout ! "
And Biron says the study of
" Slow arts entirely keep the brain ; And, therefore, finding barren practisers, Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil."
In the Anatomy of Melancholy, the author (Bacon, as we believe) says that " poetry and beggary are Gemini, twin-born brats, inseparable companions.
" And to this day is every scholar poor ; Gross gold from them runs headlong to the boor."
And now we come to dramatic poesy, a section which Bacon seems carefully to have omitted in the English edition of the Advancement of Learning. That edition would, during his own lifetime, be chiefly read by his own countrymen, and might draw attention to his connection with the drama and stage plays, arts which, as we have seen, he held to be of the highest value and importance, although in his time corrupt, degraded, plainly neglected, and esteemed but as toys.
" Dramatic poesy, which has the theatre for its world, would be of excellent use if well directed. For the stage is capable of no small influence, both of discipline and of corruption. Now, of corruptions in this kind we have had enough ; but the discipline has, in our times, been plainly neglected. And though in modern states play-acting is esteemed but as a toy, except when it is too satirical and biting, yet among the ancients it was used
* Int. Nat. 10. f Nov. Org. I. 85.
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as a means of educating men's minds to virtue. Nay, it has been regarded by learned men and great philosophers as a kind of musician's bow, by which men's minds may be played upon. And certainly it is most true, and one of the great secrets of nature, that the minds of men are more open to impressions and affections, when many are gathered together, than when they alone." *
Later on, in connection with Rhetoric and other arts of trans- mitting knowledge, he writes :
"It will not be amiss to observe that even mean faculties, when they fall into great men or great matters, work great and important effects. Of this I will bring forward an example worthy to be remembered, the more so because the Jesuits appear not to despise this kind of discipline, therein judging, as I think, well. It is a thing, indeed, if practised profession- ally, of low repute ; but if it be made a part of discipline it is of excellent use. I mean stage playing — an art which strengthens the memory, regulates the tone and effect of the voice and pronunciation, teaches a decent carriage of the countenance and gesture, gives not a little assurance, and accustoms young men to bear being looked at."
He then gives an example from Tacitus (not from Hamlet) of a player who
" in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his whole conceit That, from her working, all his visage wann'd. Tears in his eyes, distraction in 's aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting To his conceit,"
and who so moved and excited his fellow-soldiers with a fictitious account of the murder of his brother that, had it not shortly afterward appeared that nothing of the sort had happened, or, as Hamlet says, that it was "all for nothing" — " nay, that he never had a brother, would hardly have kept their hands off the prefect ; but the fact was, that he played the whole thing as if it had been a piece on the stage." f
Highly as Poetry in all its branches (but especially in the narrative and dramatic forms) is extolled, to Parabolic Poetry a
* De Aug. II. 13. t De Aug. VI. 9.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 181
still more distinguished place is given, and this would certainly strike us as strange if it were not that this parabolic method is found to be so intimately connected with the whole question of secret societies, their symbols, ciphers, and hieroglyphics.
In the De Augmentis we cannot fail to see that he is every- where leading up to a secret description of his own system of conveying covert or hidden information and of moralising two meanings in one word.
"Parabolic Poesy is of a higher character than the others, and appears to be something sacred and venerable, especially as religion itself commonly uses its aid as a means of communi- cation between divinity and humanity. But this, too, is corrupted by the levity and idleness of wits in dealing with allegory. It is of double use, and serves for contrary purposes, for it serves for an infoldment, and it likewise serves for illustration. In the latter case the object is a method of teaching, in the former an artifice for concealment." He goes on to show how, in days when men's minds were not prepared for the reception of new ideas, they were made more capable of receiving them by means of examples ; and hence the ancient times are full of parables, riddles, and similitudes.
That this was Bacon's strong and well considered opinion appears from its frequent repetition in his works. The admirable preface to The Wisdom of the Ancients enters into this subject with considerable detail, and is peculiarly interesting on account of the indisputable evidence which it affords that these things were new in Bacon's day ; that it was he who revived the use of trope and metaphor ; who taught men, in days when this knowledge of the ancients had been all but extinguished, to light up or illustrate, "not only antiquity, but the things themselves."
Again, repeating that there are two contrary ends to be answered by the use of parable, which may serve as well to wrap up and envelop secret teaching, as openly to instruct, he points out that, even if we drop the concealed use, and consider the ancient fables only as stories intended for amusement,
" Still the other use must remain, and can never be given up~ And every man of any learning must allow that this method of instructing is grave, sober, or exceedingly useful, and sometimes necessary in the sciences, as it opens an easy and familiar
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passage to the human understanding in all new discoveries that are abstruse and out of the road of vulgar opinions. Hence, in the first ages, when such inventions and conclusions of the human reason as are now trite and common were new and little known, all things * abounded with fables, parables, similes, comparisons, and allusions, which were not intended to conceal, but to inform and teach, whilst the minds of men continued rude and unpractised in matters of subtlety and speculation, or even impatient, and in a manner uncapable of receiving such things as did not directly fall under and strike the senses. For, as hieroglyphics were in use before writing, so were parables in use before arguments. And even to this day, if any man would let new light in upon the human understanding, and conquer prejudice, without raising con- tests, animosities, opposition, or disturbance, he must still go on in the same path, and have recourse to the like method of allegory, metaphor, and allusion.
"Now, whether any mystic meaning be concealed beneath the fables of the ancient poets is a matter of some doubt. For my own part I must confess that I am inclined to think that a mystery is involved in no small number of them. ... I take them to be a kind of breath from the traditions of more ancient nations, which fell into the pipes of the Greeks. But since that which has hitherto been done in the interpretation of these parables, being the work of skilful men, not learned beyond commonplaces, does not by any means satisfy me, I think fit to set down philosophy according to the ancient parables among the desiderata. "
He selects, as examples of his own interpretation of the ancient myths, Pan interpreted of the Universe and Natural Philosophy ; Perseus, of War and Political Philosophy ; Dionysus, of Desire and Moral Philosophy.
Who can read the scientific works of Bacon, or try really to understand his philosophy, without perceiving that, whatever he may have discovered, revived, instilled, or openly taught, his main, object was to teach men to teach themselves ? His " method " everywhere tends to this point. To get at general principles, to find out first causes, and to invent the art of inventing arts, and of handing down as well as of advancing
*"If you look in the maps of the 'orld, you shall find in the com- parisons between Macedon and Monmouth, that the situations, look you, is both alike. . . . For there's figures in all things. ... I speak but in the figures and comparisons of it.1' — Henry V. IV. 8.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 183
the knowledge acquired — these were his aims. He is fully conscious that life is short and art is long, and therefore does not attempt to perfect any one department of science. He gives the keys, and expects others to decipher the problems by means of those keys. He had very small respect for mere accumula- tions of detached facts, but he knew that generalisations could only be properly based upon such accumulations, classified and reduced to order, and that axioms to be true must be " drawn from the very centre of the sciences." That he organised and supervised the making of such stores of facts and scraps of knowledge as fill the ponderous volumes of the encyclopaedists of the sixteenth century, we do not for an instant doubt. Modern science, in its pride or conceit, has too often been in- clined to disown its vast debts to Bacon, because, forsooth, having worked with the whole mass of his accumulated know- ledge to begin upon, whereas he began upon nothing, they now find short cuts to the invention of sciences for which he laboured when science was an empty name, and the art of invention unknown excepting by Bacon himself. That his works are ostensibly and intentionally left unfinished, and that the book- lore of his time was to his mind thoroughly unsatisfactory, and the store of knowledge acquired inadequate for the in- vention and advancement of arts and sciences, is made very plain in the "Filum Labyrinthi sive Formula Inquisitionis" in which he relates to his sons * (the Rosicrucian Fraternity, of which he was the father) the thoughts which passed through his mind on this subject :
" Francis Bacon thought in this manner. The knowledge whereof the world is now possessed, especially that of nature, extendeth not to magnitude and certainty of works. . . . When men did set before themselves the variety and perfection of works produced by mechanical arts, they are apt rather to admire the provisions of man than to apprehend his wants, not consider- ing that the original intentions and conclusions of nature, which are the life of all that variety, are not many nor deeply fetched, and that the rest is but the subtle and ruled motion of the instrument and hand, and that the shop therein is not unlike the library, which in such number of books containeth, for the
* In the left-hand corner of the MS. in the British Museum (Harl. MSS. 6797, fo. 139), there is written in Bacon's hand : Ad Filios.
184 FRANCIS BACON
far greater part, nothing but iterations, varied sometimes in form, but not new in substance. So he saw plainly that opinion of store was a cause of want, and that both books and doctrines appear many and are few. He thought, also, that knowledge is uttered to men in a form as if everything were finished, for it is reduced into arts and methods, which in their divisions do seem to include all that may be. And how weakly soever the parts are filled, yet they carry the shew and reason total, and thereby the writings of some received authors go for the very art ; whereas antiquity used to deliver the knowledge which the mind of man had gathered in observations, aphorisms, or short and dispersed sentences, or small tractates of some parts that they had diligently meditated and laboured, which did invite men to ponder that which was invented, and to add and supply further.1'
A vast number of such " small tractates " as Bacon here men- tions will be found amongst the works which sprang up in his time and immediately after his death. They seem to be the result, for the most part, of diligent pondering upon the works which Bacon himself had " invented " ; they reproduce his say- ings, paraphrasing, diluting, abridging, or delivering them in short and dispersed aphorisms, according to the method which he advocates as one means for the advancement of learning. The method is still extant, and Bacon continues, like evergreen history, to repeat himself. Often when unexpectedly we come upon his own words and apparently original thoughts, familiarly used as household words, or calmly appropriated by subsequent writers, we think how true it is that one man labours and others enter into his labours.
Once more, a brief summary of the deficiencies which Bacon found in the literature and arts of discourse of his own times :
1. A history of learning (anything in fact corresponding to Prof. H. Morley's Tables of English Literature).
2. Civil history, biographies, commentaries, antiquities, chronicles, perfect histories.
3. Appendices to history, orations, letters, apophthegms or brief sayings, etc.
4. Registers, journals, memorials, etc.
5. Helps to the art of memory.
6. Philosophic grammar — (a.) Words new-coined. (6.) Words from foreign sources, (c.) A true grammar of language.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 185
7. A store or provision for discourse, forms of speech, elegan- cies, prefaces, conclusions, digressions, etc.
8. A method of discourse and for the transmission of knowledge.
9. " Collections," dictionaries, encyclopaedia, books of refer- ence.
10. Store of sophisms. *
11. Store of antitheta, or arguments on all sides ; common- places.
12. Treatises on elocution and prosody, on sound, measure, and accent in poetry.
13. Dramatic poesy and the art of stage-playing.
14. Parabolic poetry ; the use of symbols, emblems, hiero- glyphics, metaphors ; the power of using analogies, etc. ; fables, parables, allegories.
Not one word does Bacon say about the prodigious increase in richness of language which had taken place during his own life. As he wrote in the prime of his manhood, so he writes in the complete edition of the Advancement of Learning, published simultaneously with the Shakespeare plays in 1623. Ending where he began, and disregarding the mass of splendid literature which filled up all numbers and surpassed the finest efforts of Greece and Rome, he calmly sets down philosophic grammar and the art of using beautiful language as " wanting."
186 FRANCIS BACON