Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients. Francis Bacon

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СКАЧАТЬ and followed by a long line of nobles and judges, to be installed in the office of Lord High Chancellor; by and by, settling with his servants the account of the bribes they had received for him; a little embarrassed by being obliged, out of decency, the case being so clear, to decide against the party whose money he had pocketed, but stifling the misgivings of conscience by the splendor and flattery which he now commanded; struck to the earth by the discovery of his corruption; taking to his bed, and refusing sustenance; confessing the truth of the charges brought against him, and abjectly imploring mercy; nobly rallying from his disgrace, and engaging in new literary undertakings, which have added to the splendor of his name; still exhibiting a touch of his ancient vanity, and, in the midst of pecuniary embarrassment, refusing to ‘be stripped of his feathers;’25 inspired, nevertheless, with all his youthful zeal for science, in conducting his last experiment of ‘stuffing a fowl with snow to preserve it,’ which succeeded ‘excellently well,’ but brought him to his grave; and, as the closing act of a life so checkered, making his will, whereby, conscious of the shame he had incurred among his contemporaries, but impressed with a swelling conviction of what he had achieved for mankind, he bequeathed his ‘name and memory to men’s charitable speeches, to foreign nations, and the next ages.’ ”

      After this brilliant recapitulation of the principal facts of Bacon’s eventful life, there remains the difficult task of examining his character as a writer and philosopher; and then of presenting some observations on his principal works. As these subjects have occupied the attention of the master minds and most elegant writers of England, we shall unhesitatingly present the reader with the opinions of these, the most competent judges in each special department.

      But first, let the philosopher speak for himself.

      The end and aim of the writings of Bacon are best described by himself, as these descriptions may be gleaned from his various works. He taught, to use his own language, the means, not of the “amplification of the power of one man over his country, nor of the amplification of the power of that country over other nations; but the amplification of the power and kingdom of mankind over the world.”26 “A restitution of man to the sovereignty of nature.”27 “The enlarging the bounds of human empire to the effecting of all things possible.”28 From the enlargement of reason, he did not separate the growth of virtue; for he thought that “truth and goodness were one, differing but as the seal and the print, for truth prints goodness.”29

      The art which Bacon taught, has been well said to be “the art of inventing arts.”

      The great qualities of his mind, as they are exhibited in his works, have been well portrayed by the pen of Sir James Mackintosh. We subjoin the opinion of this elegant writer in his own words:

      “It is easy to describe his transcendent merit in general terms of commendation: for some of his great qualities lie on the surface of his writings. But that in which he most excelled all other men, was in the range and compass of his intellectual view—the power of contemplating many and distant objects together, without indistinctness or confusion—which he himself has called the discursive or comprehensive understanding. This wide-ranging intellect was illuminated by the brightest Fancy that ever contented itself with the office of only ministering to Reason: and from this singular relation of the two grand faculties of man, it has resulted, that his philosophy, though illustrated still more than adorned by the utmost splendor of imagery, continues still subject to the undivided supremacy of intellect. In the midst of all the prodigality of an imagination which, had it been independent, would have been poetical, his opinions remained severely rational.

      “It is not so easy to conceive, or at least to describe, other equally essential elements of his greatness, and conditions of his success. He is probably a single instance of a mind which, in philosophizing, always reaches the point of elevation whence the whole prospect is commanded, without ever rising to such a distance as to lose a distinct perception of every part of it.”30

      Mr. Macaulay speaks of the following peculiarity of Bacon’s understanding:31—

      “With great minuteness of observation he had an amplitude of comprehension such as has never yet been vouchsafed to any other human being. The small fine mind of La Bruyère had not a more delicate tact than the large intellect of Bacon. The “Essays” contain abundant proofs that no nice feature of character, no peculiarity in the ordering of a house, a garden, or a court-masque, could escape the notice of one whose mind was capable of taking in the whole world of knowledge. His understanding resembled the tent which the fairy Paribanou gave to prince Ahmed. Fold it, and it seemed a toy for the hand of the lady. Spread it, and the armies of powerful sultans might repose beneath its shade.

      “In keenness of observation he has been equalled, though, perhaps, never surpassed. But the largeness of his mind was all his own. The glance with which he surveyed the intellectual universe, resembled that which the archangel, from the golden threshold of heaven, darted down into the new creation.

      “Round he surveyed and well might, where he stood

      So high above the circling canopy

      Of night’s extended shade—from eastern point

      Of Libra, to the fleecy star which bears

      Andromeda far off Atlantic seas

      Beyond the horizon.”

      Bacon’s philosophy is, to use an expression of his own, “the servant and interpreter of nature;” he cultivated it in the leisure left him by the assiduous study and practice of the law and by the willing duties of a courtier; it was rather the recreation than the business of his life; “my business,” said he, “found rest in my contemplations;” but his very recreations rendered him, according to Leibnitz, the father of experimental philosophy, and, according to all, the originator of all its results, of all later discoveries in chemistry and the arts, in short, of all modern science and its applications.

      Mr. Macaulay is of opinion that the two leading principles of his philosophy are utility and progress; that the ethics of his inductive method are to do good, to do more and more good, to mankind.

      Lord Campbell believes that a most perfect body of ethics might be made out from the writings of Bacon.

      The origin of his philosophy was the conviction with which he was impressed of the insufficiency of that of the ancients, or rather of that of Aristotle, which reigned with almost undisputed sway throughout Europe. He reverenced antiquity for its great works, its great men; but not because of its ancientness; he deemed its decrees worthy of reverential consideration, but did not think they admitted of no appeal; he was not a bigot to antiquity or a contemner of modern times. He happily combated that undue and blind submission to the authority of ancient times for the mere reason that they are older than our own, alleging truly that “ANTIQUITAS SECULI JUVENTUS MUNDI, that our times are the ancient times, when the world is ancient, and not those which we account ancient, ordine retrogrado, by a computation backward from ourselves.”32

      Throwing off, then, all allegiance to antiquity, he appealed directly from Aristotle to nature, from reasoning to experiment.

      But let us invoke the testimony of an eminent philosopher, Sir John Herschel:—

      “By the discoveries of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, the errors of the Aristotelian philosophy were effectually overturned on a plain appeal to the facts of nature; but it remained to show, on broad and general principles, how and why Aristotle was in the wrong; to set in evidence the peculiar weakness of his method of philosophizing, and to substitute in its place a stronger and better. This important task was executed by Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, who will therefore justly be looked upon in all future ages as the great reformer СКАЧАТЬ