Spanish ambassador, that I would willingly forbear the honour to get rid of the burden; that I had always a desire to lead a private life. Gondomar answered, that he would tell me a tale; 'My lord, there was once an old rat that would needs leave the world: he acquainted the young rats that he would retire into his hole, and spend his days in solitude, and commanded them to respect his philosophical seclusion. They forbore two or three days: at last one, hardier than his fellows, ventured in to see how he did; he entered, and found him sitting in the midst of a rich Parmesan cheese."
In such familiar explanations did he indulge himself: it being his object not to inflate trifles into marvels, but to reduce marvels to plain things. Of these simple modes of illustrating truth it appears, from a volume of Apothegms, published in the decline of his life, and a recommendation of them, in this treatise, as a useful appendage to history, that he had formed a collection.
When the subject required it, he, without departing from simplicity, selected images of a higher nature; as, when explaining how the body acts upon the mind, and anticipating the common senseless observation, that such investigations are injurious to religion, "Do not," he says, "imagine that inquiries of this nature question the immortality of the soul, or derogate from its sovereignty over the body. The infant in its mother's womb partakes of the accidents of its mother, but is separable in due season." So, too, when explaining that the body is decomposed by the depredation of innate spirit and of ambient air, and that if the action of these causes can be prevented, the body will defy decomposition; "Have you never," he says, "seen a fly in amber, more beautifully entombed than an Egyptian monarch?" and, when speaking of the resemblance in the different parts of nature, and calling upon his readers to observe that truths are general, he says, "Is not the delight of the quavering upon a stop in music the same with the playing of light upon the water,
"'Splendet tremulo sub lumine pontus?'"
Such are his beautiful and playful modes of familiarizing abstruse subjects: but to such instances he did not confine himself. He was too well acquainted with our nature, merely to explain truth, without occasionally raising the mind by noble and lofty images to love it.
It must not be supposed that, because he illustrated his thoughts, he was misled by imagination, which never had precedence, but always followed in the train of his reason: or, because he had recourse to arrangement, that he was enslaved by method, which he always disliked, as impeding the progress of knowledge. It is, therefore, his constant admonition, that a plain, unadorned style, in aphorisms, is the proper style for philosophy; and in aphorisms, the Novum Organum and his tract on Universal Justice are composed. But, although this was his general opinion; although he was too well acquainted with what he terms the idols of the mind, to be diverted from truth by the love of order: yet, knowing the charms of theory and system, and the necessity of adopting them to insure a favourable reception for abstruse works, he did not reject these garlands, at once the ornament and fetters of science. They may now, perhaps, be laid aside, and the noble temple which he raised may be destroyed; but its gorgeous magnificence will never be forgotten, and amidst the ruins a noble statue will be seen by every true worshipper of beauty and of knowledge.
To form a correct judgment of the merits of this treatise, it is but justice to the author to remember both the time when it was written and the persons for whom it was composed; "length and ornament of speech being fit for persuasion of multitudes, although not for information of kings."
The work is divided into two books: the first consisting of his dedication to the king: – of his statement of the objections to learning, by divines, by politicians, and from the errors of learned men; – and of some of the advantages of knowledge.
If, in compliance with the custom of the times, or from an opinion that wisdom, although it ought not to stoop to persons, should submit to occasions, or from a morbid anxiety to accelerate the advancement of knowledge, Bacon could delude himself by the supposition that this fulsome dedication to the king was consistent either with the simplicity or dignity of philosophy, he must have forgotten what Seneca said to Nero: "Suffer me to stay here a little longer with thee, not to flatter thine ear, for that is not my custom, as I have always preferred to offend by truth than to please by flattery." He must have forgotten that when Æsop said to Solon, "Either we must not come to princes, or we must seek to please and content them;" Solon answered, "Either we must not come to princes at all, or we must speak truly, and counsel them for the best." He must have forgotten his own doctrine, that books ought to have no patrons but truth and reason; and he must also have forgotten his own nervous and beautiful admonition, that "the honest and just bounds of observation by one person upon another, extend no further but to understand him sufficiently, whereby not to give him offence, or whereby to be able to give him faithful counsel; or whereby to stand upon reasonable guard and caution with respect to a man's self: but to be speculative into another man, to the end to know how to work him, or wind him, or govern him, proceedeth from a heart that is double and cloven, and not entire and ingenuous, which as in friendship it is want of integrity, so towards princes or superiors it is want of duty."
