The Essays of Francis Bacon/XXIII Of Wisdom for a Man's Self

by Francis Bacon

XXIII. Of Wisdom for a Man's Self.

An ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is a shrewd^[1] thing in an orchard or garden. And certainly men that are great lovers of themselves waste^[2] the public. Divide with reason between self-love and society; and be so true to thyself, as thou be not false to others;^[3] specially to thy king and country. It is a poor centre of a man's actions, ' himself. It is right^[4] earth. For that only stands fast upon his own centre;^[5] whereas all things that have affinity with the heavens, move upon the centre of another, which they benefit. The referring of all to a man's self is more tolerable in a sovereign prince; because themselves are not only themselves, but their good and evil is at the peril of the public fortune. But it is a desperate evil in a servant to a prince, or a citizen in a republic. For whatsoever affairs pass such a man's hands, he crooketh^[6] them to his own ends; which must needs be often eccentric to the ends of his master or state. Therefore let princes, or states, choose such servants as have not this mark; except they mean their service should be made but the accessary.^[7] That which maketh the effect more pernicious is that all proportion is lost. It were disproportion enough for the servant's good to be preferred before the master's; but yet it is a greater extreme, when a little good of the servant shall carry things against a great good of the master's. And yet that is the case of bad officers, treasurers, ambassadors, generals, and other false and corrupt servants; which set a bias^[8] upon their bowl, of their own petty ends and envies, to the overthrow of their master's great and important affairs. And for the most part, the good such servants receive is after the model of their own fortune; but the hurt they sell for that good is after the model of their master's fortune. And certainly it is the nature of extreme self-lovers, as they will set an house on fire, and^[9] it were but to roast their eggs;^[10] and yet these men many times hold credit with their masters, because their study is but to please them and profit themselves; and for either respect they will abandon the good of their affairs.

Wisdom for a man's self is, in many branches thereof, a depraved thing. It is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house somewhat before it fall. It is wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out the badger, who digged and made room for him. It is the wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour.^[11] But that which is specially to be noted is, that those which (as Cicero says of Pompey^[12]) are sui amantes sine rivali,^[13] are many times unfortunate. And whereas they have all their times sacrificed to themselves, they become in the end themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy of fortune, whose wings they thought by their self-wisdom to have pinioned.

1. Shrewd. Sly, mischievous, unkind.

   "Do my Lord of Canterbury
   A shrewd turn, and he is your friend for ever."
   

   Shakspere. King Henry VIII. v. 2.

   "For many are wise in their own ways that are weak for government or counsel; like ants, which is a wise creature for itself, but very hurtful for the garden." Advancement of Learning. II. xxiii. 10.
2. Waste. To lay waste; to devastate.

3. "To thine own self be true;
   And it must follow, as the night the day,
   Thou canst not then be false to any man."
   

   Shakspere. Hamlet, i. 3.

4. Right. True, genuine, actual, real. "The Poet is indeed the right Popular Philosopher. Whereof Esops tales give good proofe." Sir Philip Sidney. The Defense of Poesie. p. 18.
5. Bacon accepted the Ptolemaic system, which made the earth the centre of the universe. The Copernican system was not generally received until long after his time.
6. Crook. To bend or turn out of the straight course; to pervert.
7. Accessary, also spelled accessory.
8. Bias. A weight in one side of the bowl, that is, 'ball,' which deflects it from the straight line.
9. And. If.
10. The motive of Lamb's essay, A Dissertation upon Roast Pig, turns on the drollery that the art of roasting was discovered in China by the accidental burning of a cottage containing "a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than nine in number."
11. "His nature is ever when he would have his prey to cry and sob like a Christian body, to provoke them to come to him, and then he snatcheth at them." Master John Hawkins's Second Voyage. Hakluyt. p. 534. ed. 1598.

    "the mournful crocodile
    With sorrow snares relenting passengers;"
    

    Shakspere. II. King Henry VI. iii. 1.

12. Cneius Pompeius Magnus, surnamed 'the Great,' 106–48 B.C. With Caesar and Crassus, Pompey formed the first triumvirate, 60 B.C. He was defeated by Caesar in the battle of Pharsalus, in Thessaly, 48 B.C.
13. Lovers of themselves, without a rival (quam se ipse amans sine rivali). Cicero, Ad Quintum Fratrem. III. 8. 4. The Correspondence of M. Tullius Cicero. Robert Yelverton Tyrrell. Vol. II. p. 194.