The Works of Francis Bacon

Volume 1

LORD BACON

from a print by J Boubraken 1738

THE WORKS

OF

FRANCIS BACON,

LORD CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND.

WITH A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR

BY

BASIL MONTAGU, ESQUIRE.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

NEW YORK; R. WORTHINGTON, 770 BROADWAY. 1884

PREFACE

About thirty years ago I read in the will of Lord Bacon—"For my burial, I desire it may be in St. Michael's Church, St. Albans: there was my mother buried, and it is the parish church of my mansion-house of Gorhambury, and it is the only Christian church within the walls of Old Verulam. For my name and memory, I leave it to men's charitable speeches, to foreign nations, and the next ages."

This passage, not to be seen till he was at rest from his labours, impressed me with a feeling of his consciousness of ill-usage, and a conviction that the time would arrive when justice would be done to his memory. Sir Philip Sydney says, "I never read the old song of Percy and Douglas, without feeling my heart stirred as by the sound of a trumpet;" and assuredly this voice from the grave was not heard by me with less emotion.

The words were cautiously selected, with the knowledge which he, above all men, possessed of their force and pregnant meaning, and of their certain influence, sooner or later, upon the community. They spoke to me as loudly of a sense of injury, and of a reliance upon the justice of future ages, as the opening of the Novum Organum speaks with the consciousness of power:

FRANCISCUS DE VERULAMIO SIC COGITAVIT.

There was also something to me truly affecting in the disclosure of tender natural feeling in the short sentence referring to his mother, which, spanning a whole life between the cradle and the grave, seemed to record nothing else worthy of a tribute of affection.

Thus impressed, I resolved to discover the real merits of the case I found that the subject had always been involved in some mystery. Archbishop Tennison, the admirer of Lord Bacon, and the friend of Dr. Rawley, his domestic chaplain, thus mentions it in the Baconiana: "His lordship owned it under his hand, that he was frail, and did partake of the abuses of the times; and surely he was a partaker of their severities also. The great cause of his suffering is, to some, a secret. I leave them to find it out by his words to King James: 'I wish, that as I am the first, so I may be the last of sacrifices in your times:' and when, from private appetite, it is resolved that a creature shall be sacrificed, it is easy to pick up sticks enough from any thicket whither it hath strayed, to make a fire to offer it with."

Dr. Rawley did not, as it seems, think it proper to be more explicit, because he judged "some papers touching matters of estate, to tread too near to the heels of truth, and to the times of the persons concerned."

Having read this intimation in the Baconiana, I procured, with some difficulty, a copy of the tract that contains the words to which Archbishop Tennison alludes. It is Bushel's Abridgment of the lord chancellor's philosophical theory. This work, written by Bushel more than forty years after his master's death, abounding with constant expressions of affection and respect, states that, during a recess of parliament, the king sent for the chancellor, and ordered him not to resist the charges, as resistance would be injurious to the king and to Buckingham. Upon examining the journals of the House of Lords, I found that this interview between the king and the chancellor was recorded.

Having made this progress, I was informed that there were many of Lord Bacon's letters in the Lambeth Library. I immediately applied to the Archbishop of Canterbury for permission to read and take extracts from them. With this application, his grace, with his usual courtesy and kindness, most readily complied.

In one of the letters there is the following passage in Greek characters.

Οφ μγ οφφενς, φαρ βε ιτ φρομ με το σαγ, δατ υενιαμ κηρυις; υεξατ κενσυρα κολυμβας: βυτ ι ωιλλ σαγ θατ ι ανε γοοδ ωαρραντ φορ: θεγ ωερε νοτ Οε γρεατεστ οφφενδερς ιν Ισραελ υπον ωηομ θε ωαλλ φελλ.

In another letter he says, "And for the briberies and gifts wherewith I am charged, when the books of hearts shall be opened, I hope I shall not be found to have the troubled fountain of a corrupt heart, in a depraved habit of taking rewards to pervert justice; howsoever I may be frail, and partake of the abuses of the times."

From this ambiguity by a man so capable of expressing himself clearly, and whose favourite maxim was, "Do not inflate plain things into marvels, but reduce marvels to plain things," I was confirmed in the opinion which I had formed. I, therefore, proceeded to collect the evidence.

After great deliberation I arranged all the materials; and, from the chance that I might not live to complete the work, I some years since prepared that part which relates to the charge against him, and intrusted it to a friend, that, in the event of my death, my researches might not be lost.

The life is now submitted to public consideration. I cannot conclude without returning my grateful acknowledgments to the many friends to whom I am much indebted:—particularly to Archdeacon Wrangham, with the feeling of more than forty years' uninterrupted friendship;—to my intelligent friend, B. Heywood Bright, for his important co-operation and valuable communication from the Tanner Manuscripts;—to my dear friend, William Wood, for his encouragement during the progress of the work, and for his admirable translation of the Novum Organum. How impossible is it for me to express my obligations to the sweet taste of her to whom I am indebted for every blessing of my life!

I am well aware of the many faults with which the work abounds, and particularly of the occasional repetitions. I must trust to the lenient sentence of my reader, after he has been informed that it was not pursued in the undisturbed quiet of literary leisure, but in the few hours which could be rescued from arduous professional duties; not carefully composed by a student in his pensive citadel, but by a daily "delver in the laborious mine of the law," where the vexed printer frequently waited till the impatient client was despatched; and that, to publish it as it is, I have been compelled to forego many advantages; to relinquish many of the enjoyments of social life, and to sacrifice not only the society, but even the correspondence of friends very dear to me. I ask, and I am sure I shall not ask in vain, for their forgiveness. One friend the grave has closed over, who cheered me in my task when I was weary, and better able, from his rich and comprehensive mind, to detect errors, than any man, was always more happy to encourage and to commend. Wise as the serpent, gall-less as the dove, pious and pure of heart, tender, affectionate, and forgiving, this, and more than this, I can say, after the trial of forty years, was my friend and instructor, Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

I am now to quit forever a work upon which I have so long and so happily been engaged. I must separate from my companion, my familiar friend, with whom, for more than thirty years, I have taken sweet counsel. With a deep feeling of humility I think of the conclusion of my labours; but I think of it with that satisfaction ever attendant upon the hope of being an instrument of good. "Power to do good is the true and lawful end of aspiring. Merit and good works is the end of man's motion, and conscience of the same is the accomplishment of man's rest; for, if man can be a partaker of God's theatre, he will be a partaker of God's rest."

I please myself with the hope that I may induce some young man, who, at his entrance into life, is anxious to do justice to his powers, to enjoy that "suavissima vita indies sentire se fieri meliorem," to look into the works of our illustrious countryman. I venture also to hope that, in these times of inquiry, the works of this philosopher may, without interfering with academical studies, be deemed deserving the consideration of our universities, framed, as they so wisely are, for the diffusion of the knowledge of our predecessors. Perhaps some opulent member of the university, when considering how he may extend to future times the blessings which he has enjoyed in his pilgrimage, may think that, in the University of Cambridge, a Verulamian Professorship might be productive or good:—but these expectations may be the illusions of a lover; and it is not given to man to love and to be wise.—There are, however, pleasures of which nothing can bereave me; the consciousness that I have endeavoured to render some assistance to science and to the profession, the noble, intellectual profession of which I am a member. How deeply, how gratefully do I feel; with what a lofty spirit and sweet content do I think of the constant kindness of my many, many friends!

And now, for the last time, I use the words of Lord Bacon: "Being at some pause, looking back into that I have passed through, this writing seemeth to me, 'si nunquam fallit imago,' as far as a man can judge of his own work, not much better than the noise or sound which musicians make while they are tuning their instruments, which is nothing pleasant to hear, but yet is a cause why the music is sweeter afterwards: so have I been content to tune the instruments of the muses, that they may play that have better hands."

To posterity and distant ages Bacon bequeathed his good name, and posterity and distant ages will do him ample justice. Wisdom herself has suffered in his disgrace, but year after year brings to light proof of the arts that worked Bacon's downfall, and covered his character with obloquy. He will find some future historian who, assisted by the patient labours of the present editor, with all his zeal and tenfold his ability; with power equal to the work, and leisure to pursue it, will dig the statue from the rubbish which may yet deface it; and, obliterating one by one the paltry libels scrawled upon its base, will place it, to the honour of true science, in a temple worthy of his greatness.

B. Montagu.

November 17, 1834.

Life of Bacon, Part I.

Nec tanto ceres labore, ut in fabulis est, liberam fertur quæsivisse filiam, quanto ego hanc του καλου ἰδέαν, veluti pulcherrimam quandam imaginem, per omnes rerum formas et facies: (πολλαὶ γὰρ μορφαὶ τῶν Δαιμοίων) dies noctesque indagare soleo, et quasi certis quibusdam vestigiis ducentem sector. Unde fit, ut qui, spretis quæ vulgus prava rerum æstimatione opinatur, id sentire et loqui et esse audet; quod summa per omne ævum sapientia optimum esse docuit, illi me protinus, sicubi reperiam, necessitate quadam adjungam. Quod si ego sive natura, sive meo fato ita sum comparatus, ut nulla contentione, et laboribus meis ad tale decus et fastigium laudis ipse valeam emergere; tamen quo minus qui eam gloriam assecuti sunt, aut eo feliciter aspirant, illos semper colam, et suspiciam, nec Dii puto, nec homines prohibuerint.

THIS LIFE OF FRANCIS BACON

IS

INSCRIBED TO

THE REVEREND AND LEARNED MARTIN DAVY, D D.,

MASTER OF CAIUS COLLEGE,

HENRY BICKERSTETH, CLEMENT T. SWANSTON,

GEORGE TUTHILL,

AND

TO THE MEMORY OF SAMUEL ROMILLY.

B. M.

LIFE OF BACON.

from his birth till the death of his father.

1560 to 1580.

Francis Bacon was born at York-House, in the Strand, on the 22d of January, 1560. He was the youngest son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, and of Anne, a daughter of the learned and contemplative Sir Anthony Cooke, tutor to King Edward the Sixth. Of Sir Nicholas, it has been said, that he was a man full of wit and wisdom, a learned lawyer, and a true gentleman; of a mind the most comprehensive to surround the merits of a cause; of a memory to recollect its least circumstance; of the deepest search into affairs of any man at the council table, and of a personal dignity so well suited to his other excellencies, that his royal mistress was wont to say, "My lord keeper's soul is well lodged."

He was still more fortunate in the rare qualities of his mother, for Sir Anthony Cooke, acting upon his favourite opinion then very prevalent, that women were as capable of learning as men, carefully instructed his daughters every evening, in the lessons which he had taught the king during the day; and amply were his labours rewarded; for he lived to see all his daughters happily married; and Lady Anne distinguished, not only for her conjugal and maternal virtues, but renowned as an excellent scholar, and the translator, from the Italian, of various sermons of Ochinus, a learned divine; and, from the Latin, of Bishop Jewel's Apologia, recommended by Archbishop Parker for general use.

It was his good fortune not only to be born of such parents, but also at that happy time "when learning had made her third circuit; when the art of printing gave books with a liberal hand to men of all fortunes; when the nation had emerged from the dark superstitions of popery; when peace, throughout all Europe, permitted the enjoyment of foreign travel and free ingress to foreign scholars; and, above all, when a sovereign of the highest intellectual attainments, at the same time that she encouraged learning and learned men, gave an impulse to the arts, and a chivalric and refined tone to the manners of the people."

Bacon's health was always delicate, and his temperament was of such sensibility, as to be affected, even to fainting, by very slight alterations in the atmosphere; a constitutional infirmity which seems to have attended him through life.

While he was yet a child, the signs of genius, for which he was in afterlife distinguished, could not have escaped the notice of his intelligent parents. They must have been conscious of his extraordinary powers, and of their responsibility that, upon the right direction of his mind, his future eminence, whether as a statesman or as a philosopher, almost wholly depended.

He was cradled in politics; he was not only the son of the lord keeper, but the nephew of Lord Burleigh. He had lived from his infancy amidst the nobility of the reign of Elizabeth, who was herself delighted, even in his childhood, to converse with him, and to prove him with questions, which he answered with a maturity above his years, and with such gravity that the queen would often call him her young lord keeper. Upon the queen's asking him, when a child, how old he was, he answered, "two years younger than your majesty's happy reign."

But there were dawnings of genius of a much higher nature. When a boy, while his companions were diverting themselves near to his father's house in St. James's Park, he stole to the brick conduit to discover the cause of a singular echo; and, in his twelfth year he was meditating upon the laws of the imagination.

At the early age of thirteen, it was resolved to send him to Cambridge, of which university, he, with his brother Anthony, was matriculated as a member, on the 10th of June, 1573. They were both admitted of Trinity College, under the care of Dr. John Whitgift, a friend of the lord keeper's, then master of the college, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, and distinguished through life, not only for his piety, but for his great learning, and unwearied exertions to promote the public good.

What must have passed in his youthful, thoughtful, ardent mind, at this eventful moment, when he first quitted his father's house to engage in active life? What must have been his feelings when he approached the university, and saw in the distance, the lofty spires, and towers, and venerable walls, raised by intellect and piety, "and hollowed by the shrines where the works of the mighty dead are preserved and reposed, and by the labours of the mighty living, with joint forces directing their strength against nature herself, to take her high towers, and dismantle her fortified holds, and thus enlarge the borders of man's dominion, so far as Almighty God of his goodness shall permit?"

"As water," he says, "whether it be the dew of heaven, or the springs of the earth, doth scatter and lose itself in the ground, except it be collected into some receptacle, where it may by union comfort and sustain itself, and for that cause the industry of man hath made and framed spring heads, conduits, cisterns, and pools, which men have accustomed likewise to beautify and adorn with accomplishments of magnificence and state, as well as of use and necessity; so this excellent liquor of knowledge, whether it descend from divine inspiration, or spring from human sense, would soon perish and vanish to oblivion, if it were not preserved in books, traditions, conferences, and places appointed; as universities, colleges, and schools, for the receipt and comforting of the same. All tending to quietness and privateness of life, and discharge of cares and troubles; much like the stations which Virgil prescribeth for the hiving of bees:

Principio sedes apibus statioque petenda, Quo neque sit ventis aditus, etc.

Such were his imaginations of the tranquillity and occupations in our universities.

He could not long have resided in Cambridge before he must have discovered his erroneous notions of the mighty living, and of the pursuits in which they were engaged. Instead of students ready at all times to acquire any sort of knowledge, he found himself "amidst men of sharp and strong wits, and abundance of leisure, and small variety of reading, their wits being shut up in the cells of a few authors, chiefly Aristotle their dictator, as their persons were shut up in the cells of monasteries and colleges; and knowing little history, either of nature or time, did, out of no great quantity of matter, and infinite agitation of wit, spin cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit."

Instead of the university being formed for the discovery of truths, he saw that its object was merely to preserve and diffuse the knowledge of our predecessors: instead of general inquiry, he found that all studies were confined to Aristotle who was considered infallible in philosophy, a dictator to command, not a consul to advise; the lectures both in private in the colleges, and in public in the schools, being but expositions of his text, and comments upon his opinions, held as authentic as if they had been given under the seal of the pope. Their infallibility, however, he was not disposed to acknowledge. Whilst in the university he formed his dislike of the philosophy of Aristotle, not for the worthlessness of the author, to whose gigantic intellect he ever ascribed all high attributes, but for the unfruitfulness of his method, being a philosophy, as he was wont to say, strong for disputations and contentions, but barren for the production of works for the benefit and use of man; which, according to Bacon's opinion, is the only test of the purity of our motives for acquiring knowledge and of the value of knowledge when acquired; "Men," he says "have entered into a desire of knowledge sometimes from a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction, and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, for the benefit and use of man:—as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down, with a fair prospect; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground for strife and contention; or a shop for profit and sale; and not a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate."

It was not likely that, with such sentiments, he would meet with much sympathy in the univerity. It was still less probable that the antipathy by which he was opposed would check the ardour of his powerful mind. He went right onward in his course, unmoved by the disapprobation of men who turned from inquiries which they neither encouraged nor understood: and, seeing through the mists, by a light refracted from below the horizon, that knowledge must be raised on other foundations, and built with other materials than had been used through a long tract of many centuries, he continued his inquiries into he laws of nature, and planned his immortal work upon which he laboured during the greater part of his life, and ultimately published when he was chancellor, saying, "I have held up a light in the obscurity of philosophy; which will be seen centuries after I am dead."

After two years residence he quitted the university with the conviction not only that these seminaries of learning were stagnant, but that they were opposed to the advancement of knowedge. "In the universities," he says, "they learn nothing but to believe: first to believe that others know that which they know not; and after, themselves know that which they know not. They are like a becalmed ship; they never move but by the wind of other men's breath, and have no oars of their own to steer withal:" and in his Novum Organum, which he published when he was chancellor, he repeats what he had said when a boy. "In the universities, all things are found opposite to the advancement of the sciences; for the readings and exercises are here so managed that it cannot easily come into any one's mind to think of things out of the common road: or if, here and there, one should venture to use a liberty of judging, he can only impose the task upon himself without obtaining assistance from his fellows; and if he could dispense with this, he will still find his industry and resolution a great hinderance to his fortune. For the studies of men in such places are confined, and pinned down to the writings of certain authors; from which, if any man happens to differ, he is presently reprehended as a disturber and innovator."

Whether the intellectual gladiatorship by which students in the universities of England are now stimulated, then prevailed, does not appear, but his dislike of this motive he early and always avowed. "It is," he says, "an unavoidable decree with us ever to retain our native candour and simplicity, and not attempt a passage to truth under the conduct of vanity; for, seeking real nature with all her fruits about her, we should think it a betraying of our trust to infect such a subject either with an ambitious, an ignorant, or any other faulty manner of treating it."

Some years after Bacon had quitted Cambridge, he published his opinions upon the defects of universities; in which, after having warned the community that, as colleges are established for the communication of the knowledge of our predecessors, there should be a college appropriated to the discovery of new truths, a living spring to mix with the stagnant waters. "Let it," he says, "be remembered that there is not any collegiate education of statesmen, and that this has not only a malign influence upon the growth of sciences, but is prejudicial to states and governments, and is the reason why princes find a solitude in regard of able men to serve them in causes of state."

These warnings seem to have been disregarded, and the art of governing, not a ship, which would not be attempted without a knowledge of navigation, but the ship of the state, is intrusted, not to a knowledge of the principles of human nature, but to the knowledge of Latin and Greek and verbal criticisms upon the dead languages."

And what has been the result? During the last two centuries one class of statesmen has resisted all improvement, and their opponents have been hurried into intemperate alterations: whilst philosophy, lamenting these contentions, has, instead of advancing the science of government, been occupied in counteracting laws founded upon erroneous principles; erroneous commercial laws; erroneous laws against civil and religious liberty; and erroneous criminal laws.

So deeply was Bacon impressed with the magnitude of this evil, that by his will he endowed two lectures in either of the universities, by "a lecturer, whether stranger or English, provided he is not professed in divinity, law, or physic."

The subject of universities, and the importance to the community and to the advancement of science, that the spring should not be poisoned or polluted, was ever present to his mind,—and, in the decline of his life, he prepared the plan of a college for the knowledge of the works and creations of God, "from the cedar of Libanus to the moss that groweth out of the wall;" but the plan was framed upon a model so vast, that, without the purse of a prince and the assistance of a people, all attempts to realize it must be vain and hopeless. Some conception of his gorgeous mind in the formation of this college, may appear even at the entrance.

"We have (he says) two very long and fair galleries: and in one of these we place patterns and samples of all manner of the more rare and excellent inventions; in the other we place the statues of all principal inventors. There we have the statue of your Columbus, that discovered the West Indies; also the inventor of ships; your monk that was the inventor of ordnance and of gunpowder; the inventor of music; the inventor of letters; the inventor of printing; the inventor of observations of astronomy; the inventor of works in metal; the inventor of glass; the inventor of silk of the worm; the inventor of wine; the inventor of corn and bread; the inventor of sugars; and all these by more certain tradition than you have. Upon every invention of value, we erect a statue to the inventor, and give him a liberal and honourable reward. These statues are some of brass; some of marble and touch

some of cedar and other special woods gilt and adorned; some of iron; some of silver; some of gold."

Such is the splendour of the portico, or anteroom. Passing beyond it, every thing is to be found which imagination can conceive or reason suggest.

After having enumerated all the instruments of knowledge, "such," he says, "is a relation of the true state of Solomon's house, the end of which foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible."

In these glorious inventions of one rich mind, may be traced much of what has been effected in science and mechanics, since Bacon's death, and more that will be effected during the next two centuries.

After three years' residence in the university, his father sent him, at the age of sixteen, to Paris, under the care of Sir Amias Paulett, the English ambassador at that court: by whom, soon after his arrival, he was intrusted with a mission to the queen, requiring both secrecy and despatch: which he executed with such ability as to gain the approbation of the queen, and justify Sir Amias in the choice of his youthful messenger.

From the confidence thus reposed in him, and from the impression made upon all with whom he conversed; upon men of letters, with whom he contracted lasting friendships; upon grave statesmen and learned philosophers, it was manifest that the promise in his infancy of excellence, whether for active or for contemplative life, seemed beyond the most sanguine expectation to be realized.

After the appointment of Sir Amias Paulett's successor, Bacon travelled into the French provinces, and spent some time at Poictiers. He prepared a work upon Ciphers, which he after

published, with an outline of the state of Europe, but the laws of sound and of imagination continued to occupy his thoughts.

Whilst he was engaged in these meditations his father died suddenly, on the 20th February, 1579. He instantly returned to England.

from the death of his father till he engaged in active life.

1580 to 1590.

Discovering, upon his arrival in England, that, by the sudden death of his father, he was left without a sufficient provision to justify him in devoting his life to contemplation, it became necessary for him to select some pursuit for his support, "to think how to live, instead of living only to think."

Law and politics were the two roads open before him; in both his family had attained opulence and honour. Law, the dry and thorny study of law, had but little attraction for his discursive and imaginative mind. With the hope, therefore, that, under the protection of his political friends, and the queen's remembrance of his father, and notice of him when a child, he might escape from the mental slavery of delving in this laborious profession, he made a great effort to secure some small competence, by applying to Lord Burleigh to recommend him to the queen, and interceding with Lady Burleigh to urge his suit with his uncle.

But his application was unsuccessful; the queen and the lord treasurer, distinguished as they were for penetration into character, being little disposed to encourage him to rely upon others rather than upon himself, and to venture on the quicksands of politics, instead of the certain profession of the law, in which the queen had, when he was a child, predicted that he would one day be her "lord keeper."