The Mystery of Francis Bacon Part 16

"Wherefore out of these materials (which are surely rich and abundant) let a full and careful treatise be constructed. Not, however, that I would have their characters presented in ethics (as we find them in history, or poetry, or even in common discourse) in the shape of complete individual portraits, but rather the several features and simple lineaments of which they are composed, and by the various combinations and arrangements of which all characters whatever are made up, showing how many, and of what nature these are, and how connected and subordinated one to another; that so we may have a scientific and accurate dissection of minds and characters, and the secret dispositions of particular men may be revealed; and that from a knowledge thereof better rules may be framed for the treatment of the mind. And not only should the characters of dispositions which are impressed by nature be received into this treatise, but those also which are imposed upon the mind by s.e.x, by age, by region, by health and sickness, by beauty and deformity and the like; and again, those which are caused by fortune, as sovereignty, n.o.bility, obscure birth, riches, want, magistracy, privateness, prosperity, adversity and the like."

Shortly after follows this remarkable p.r.o.nouncement.

"But to speak the truth the poets and writers of history are the best doctors of this knowledge,[56] where we may find painted forth with great life and dissected, how affections are kindled and excited, and how pacified and restrained, and how again contained from act and further degree; how they disclose themselves, though repressed and concealed; how they work; how they vary; how they are enwrapped one within another; how they fight and encounter one with another; and many more particulars of this kind; amongst which this last is of special use in moral and civil matters; how, I say, to set affection against affection, and to use the aid of one to master another; like hunters and fowlers who use to hunt beast with beast, and catch bird with bird, which otherwise perhaps without their aid man of himself could not so easily contrive; upon which foundation is erected that excellent and general use in civil government of reward and punishment, whereon commonwealths lean; seeing these predominant affections of fear and hope suppress and bridle all the rest. For as in the government of States it is sometimes necessary to bridle one faction with another, so is it in the internal government of the mind."

In his "Distributio Operis" Bacon thus describes the missing fourth part of his "Instauratio Magna":--

"Of these the first is to set forth examples of inquiry and invention[57] according to my method exhibited by antic.i.p.ation in some particular subjects; choosing such subjects as are at once the most n.o.ble in themselves among those under enquiry, and most different one from another, that there may be an example in every kind. I do not speak of these precepts and rules by way of ill.u.s.tration (for of these I have given plenty in the second part of the work); but I mean actual types and models, by which the entire process of the mind and the whole fabric and order of invention from the beginning to the end in certain subjects, and those various and remarkable, should be set as it were before the eyes. For I remember that in the mathematics it is easy to follow the demonstration when you have a machine beside you, whereas, without that help, all appears involved and more subtle than it really is. To examples of this kind--being, in fact, nothing more than an application of the second part in detail and at large--the fourth part of the work is devoted."

The late Mr. Edwin Reed has, in his "Francis Bacon our Shakespeare,"

page 126, drawn attention to a remarkable circ.u.mstance. In 1607 Bacon had written his "Cogitata et Visa," which was the forerunner of his "Novum Organum." It was not published until twenty-seven years after his death, namely, in 1653, by Isaac Gruter, at Leyden. In 1857 Mr. Spedding found a ma.n.u.script copy of the "Cogitata" in the library of Queen's College at Oxford. This ma.n.u.script had been corrected in Bacon's own handwriting. It contained pa.s.sages which were omitted from Gruter's print. Spedding did not realise the importance of the omitted pa.s.sages, but Mr. Edwin Reed has made this manifest. The following extract is specially noteworthy, the portion printed in italics having been omitted by Gruter:--

"... So he thought best, after long considering the subject and weighing it carefully, first of all to prepare _Tabulae Inveniendi_ or regular forms of inquiry; in other words, a ma.s.s of particulars arranged for the understanding, and to serve, as it were, for an example and almost visible representation of the matter. For nothing else can be devised that would place in a clearer light what is true and what is false, or show more plainly that what is presented is more than words, and must be avoided by anyone who either has no confidence in his own scheme or may wish to have his scheme taken for more than it is worth.

"_But when these Tabulae Inveniendi have been put forth and seen, he does not doubt that the more timid wits will shrink almost in despair from imitating them with similar productions with other materials or on other subjects; and they will take so much delight in the specimen given that they will miss the precepts in it.

Still, many persons will be led to inquire into the real meaning and highest use of these writings, and to find the key to their interpretation, and thus more ardently desire, in some degree at least, to acquire the new aspect of nature which such a key will reveal. But he intends, yielding neither to his own personal aspirations nor to the wishes of others, but keeping steadily in view the success of his undertaking, having shared these writings with some, to withhold the rest until the treatise intended for the people shall be published._"

Now what conclusions may be drawn from the foregoing extracts? Bacon attached the greatest importance to the consideration of the internal life of man. He affirms that dramaticall or representative poesy, which brings the world upon the stage, is of excellent use if it be not abused. The discipline of the stage was neglected in his time, but the care of the ancients was that it should instruct the minds of men unto virtue, and wise men and great philosophers accounted it as the musical bow of the mind. He has devoted the fourth part of his "Instauratio Magna" to setting forth examples of inquiry and invention, choosing such subjects as are at once the most n.o.ble in themselves and the most different one from another, that there may be an example in every kind.

He is not speaking of precepts and rules by way of interpretation, but actual types and models by which the entire process of the mind, and the whole fabric and order of invention, should be set, as it were, before the eyes.

Not only should the characters of dispositions which are impressed by nature be received into this treatise, but those also which are imposed upon the mind by s.e.x, by age, by region, by health and sickness, by beauty and deformity, and the like; and, again, those that are caused by fortune, as sovereignty, n.o.bility, obscure birth, riches, want, magistracy, privateness, prosperity, adversity, and the like.

_The fourth part of Bacon's "Great Instauration" is missing._ The above requirements are met in the Shakespeare plays. Could the dramas be more accurately described than in the foregoing extracts?

From a study of the plays let a list be made out of the qualifications which the author must have possessed. It will be found that the only person in whom every qualification will be found who has lived in any age of any country was Francis Bacon. Any investigator who will devote the time and trouble requisite for an exhaustive examination of the subject can come to no other conclusion.

One cannot without feeling deep regret recognise that we have to turn to a foreigner to give "reasons for the faith which we English have in Shakespeare." It was a German, Schlegel, who discovered the great dramatist, and to-day we must turn to his "Lectures on the Drama" for the most penetrating description of his plays. The following is a translation of a pa.s.sage which in describing the plays almost adopts the words Bacon uses in the foregoing pa.s.sages as to the scope and object of the fourth part of his "Great Instauration."

"Never, perhaps, was there so comprehensive a talent for the delineation of character as Shakespeare's. It not only grasps the diversities of rank, s.e.x, and age, down to the dawnings of infancy; not only do the king and the beggar, the hero and the pickpocket, the sage and the idiot speak and act with equal truth; not only does he transport himself to distant ages and foreign nations, and portray in the most accurate manner, with only a few apparent violations of costume, the spirit of the ancient Romans, of the French in their wars with the English, of the English themselves during a great part of their history, of the Southern Europeans (in the serious part of many comedies), the cultivated society of that time, and the former rude and barbarous state of the North; his human characters have not only such depth and precision that they cannot be arranged under cla.s.ses, and are inexhaustible, even in conception; no, this Prometheus not merely forms men, he opens the gates of the magical world of spirits, calls up the midnight ghost, exhibits before us his witches amidst their unhallowed mysteries, peoples the air with sportive fairies and sylphs; and these beings, existing only in imagination, possess such truth and consistency that even when deformed monsters like Caliban, he extorts the conviction that if there should be such beings they would so conduct themselves. In a word, as he carries with him the most fruitful and daring fancy into the kingdom of nature; on the other hand, he carries nature into the regions of fancy, lying beyond the confines of reality. We are lost in astonishment at seeing the extraordinary, the wonderful, and the unheard of in such intimate nearness."

"If Shakespeare deserves our admiration for his characters he is equally deserving of it for his exhibition of pa.s.sion, taking this word in its widest signification, as including every mental condition, every tone from indifference or familiar mirth to the wildest rage and despair. He gives us the history of minds, he lays open to us in a single word a whole series of preceding conditions. His pa.s.sions do not at first stand displayed to us in all their height, as is the case with so many tragic poets who, in the language of Lessing, are thorough masters of the legal style of love. He paints, in a most inimitable manner, the gradual progress from the first origin. 'He gives,' as Lessing says, 'a living picture of all the most minute and secret artifices by which a feeling steals into our souls; of all the imperceptible advantages which it there gains, of all the stratagems by which every other pa.s.sion is made subservient to it, till it becomes the sole tyrant of our desires and our aversions.' Of all poets, perhaps, he alone has portrayed the mental diseases--melancholy, delirium, lunacy--with such inexpressible, and in every respect definite truth, that the physician may enrich his observations from them in the same manner as from real cases."

FOOTNOTES:

[55] A Translation by Spedding, "Works," Vol. IV., p. 23.

[56] The knowledge touching the affections and perturbations which are the diseases of the mind.

[57] Tabulae inveniendi.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF BACON.

To attempt anything of the nature of a review of Bacon's acknowledged works is a task far too great for the scope of the present volume. To attempt a survey of the whole of his works would require years of diligent study, and would necessitate a perusal of nearly every book published in England between 1576 and 1630. Not that it is suggested that all the literature of this period was the product of his pen or was produced under his supervision, but each book published should be read and considered with attention to arrive at a selection.

There has been no abler judgment of the acknowledged works than that which will be found in William Hazlitt's "Lectures on the Literature of the Age of Elizabeth." Lecture VII. commences with an account of the "Character of Bacon's Works."

It may not, however, be out of place here to try and make plain in what sense Bacon was a philosopher.

In Chapter CXVI. of the "Novum Organum" he makes his position clear in the following words:--

"First then I must request men not to suppose that after the fashion of ancient Greeks, and of certain moderns, as Telesius, Patricius, Severinus, I wish to found a new sect in philosophy. For this is not what I am about; nor do I think that it matters much to the fortunes of men what abstract notions one may entertain concerning nature and the principles of things; and no doubt many old theories of this kind can be revived, and many new ones introduced; just as many theories of the heavens may be supposed which agree well enough with the phenomena and yet differ with each other.

"For my part, I do not trouble myself with any such speculative and withal unprofitable matters. My purpose on the contrary, is to try whether I cannot in very fact lay more firmly the foundations and extend more widely the limits of the power and greatness of man ...

I have no entire or universal theory to propound."

So the idea that there was what is termed a system of philosophy constructed by Bacon must be abandoned. What justification is there for calling him the father of the Inductive Philosophy?

It is difficult to answer this question. Spedding admits that Bacon was not the first to break down the dominion of Aristotle. That followed the awakening throughout the intellectual world which was brought about by the Reformation and the revival of learning. Sir John Herschel justifies the application to Bacon of the term "The great Reformer of Philosophy"

not on the ground that he introduced inductive reasoning, but because of his "keen perception and his broad and spirit-stirring, almost enthusiastic announcement of its paramount importance, as the Alpha and Omega of science, as the grand and only chain for linking together of physical truths and the eventual key to every discovery and application."

Bacon was 60 years of age when his "Novum Organum" was published. It was founded on a tract he had written in 1607, which he called "Cogitata et Visa," not printed until long after his death. He had previously published a portion of his Essays, the two books on "The Advancement of Learning" and "The Wisdom of the Ancients." Just at the end of his life he gave to the world the "Novum Organum," accompanied by "The Parasceve." Certainly it was not understood in his time. c.o.ke described it as only fit to freight the Ship of Fools, and the King likened it "to the peace of G.o.d which pa.s.seth all understanding." It is admittedly incomplete, and Bacon made no attempt in subsequent years to complete it. It is a book that if read and re-read becomes fascinating. Taine describes it as "a string of aphorisms, a collection as it were of scientific decrees as of an oracle who foresees the future and reveals the truth." "It is intuition not reasoning," he adds. The wisdom contained in its pages is profound. An understanding of the interpretation of the Idols and the Instances has so far evaded all commentators. Who can explain the "Latent Process"? But the book contains no scheme of arrangement. Therein is found a series of desultory discourses--full of wisdom, rich in a.n.a.logies, abundant in observation and profound in comprehension. From here and there in it with the help of the "Parasceve" one can grasp the intention of the great philosopher.

In Chapter LXI. he says:--"But the course I propose for the discovery of sciences is such as leaves but little to the acuteness and strength of wits, but places all wits and understandings on a level." How was this to be accomplished? By the systemization of labour expended on scientific research. A catalogue of the particulars of histories which were to be prepared is appended to the "Parasceve." It embraces every subject conceivable. In Chapter CXI. he says, "I plainly confess that a collection of history, natural and experimental, such as I conceive it, and as it ought to be, is a great, I may say a royal work, and of much labour and expense."

In the "Parasceve" he says:--"If all the wits of all the ages had met or shall hereafter meet together; if the whole human race had applied or shall hereafter apply themselves to philosophy, and the whole earth had been or shall be nothing but academies and colleges and schools of learned men; still without a natural and experimental history such as I am going to prescribe, no progress worthy of the human race could have been made or can be made in philosophy and the sciences. Whereas on the other hand let such a history be once provided and well set forth and let there be added to it such auxiliary and light-giving experiments as in the very course of interpretation will present themselves or will have to be found out; and the investigation of nature and of all sciences will be the work of a few years. This therefore must be done or the business given up."

To carry out this work an army of workers was required. In the preparation of each history some were to make a rough and general collection of facts. Their work was to be handed over to others who would arrange the facts in order for reference. This accomplished, others would examine to get rid of superfluities. Then would be brought in those who would re-arrange that which was left and the history would be completed.

From Chapter CIII. it is clear that Bacon contemplated that eventually all the experiments of all the arts, collected and digested, _should be brought within one man's knowledge and judgment_. This man, having a supreme view of the whole range of subjects, would transfer experiments of one art to another and so lead "to the discovery of many new things of service to the life and state of man."

Nearly three hundred years have pa.s.sed since Bacon propounded his scheme. The arts and sciences have been greatly advanced. They might have proceeded more rapidly had the histories been prepared, but since his time there has arisen no man who has taken "all knowledge to be his province"--no man who could occupy the position Bacon contemplated.

The method by which the induction was to be followed is described in Chapter CV. There must be an a.n.a.lysis of nature by proper rejections and exclusions, and then, after a sufficient number of negatives, a conclusion should be arrived at from the affirmative instances. "It is in this induction," Bacon adds, "that our chief hope lies."

Bacon's new organ has never been constructed, and all wits and understandings have not yet been placed on a level.

We come back to the mystery of Francis Bacon, the possessor of the most exquisite intellect that was ever bestowed on any of the children of men. As an historian, he gives us a taste of his quality in "Henry VII."

In the Essays and the "Novum Organum," sayings which have the effect of axioms are at once striking and self-evident. But he is always desultory. In perceiving a.n.a.logies between things which have nothing in common he never had an equal, and this characteristic, to quote Macaulay, "occasionally obtained the mastery over all his other faculties and led him into absurdities into which no dull man could have fallen." His memory was so stored with materials, and these so diverse, that in similitude or with comparison he pa.s.sed from subject to subject.

In the "Advancement of Learning" are enumerated the deficiencies which Bacon observed, _nearly the whole of which were supplied during his lifetime_.

The "Sylva Sylvarum" is the most extraordinary jumble of facts and observations that has ever been brought together. It is a literary curiosity. The "New Atlantis" and other short works in quant.i.ty amount to very little. Bacon's life has. .h.i.therto remained unaccounted for. In the foregoing pages an attempt has been made to offer an intelligible explanation of the work to which he devoted his life, namely, to supply the deficiencies which he had himself pointed out and which r.e.t.a.r.ded the advancement of learning.

Hallam has said of Bacon: "If we compare what may be found in the sixth, seventh, and eighth books of the 'De Augmentis,' and the various short treatises contained in his works on moral and political wisdom and on human nature, with the rhetoric, ethics, and politics of Aristotle, or with the historians most celebrated for their deep insight into civil society and human character--with Thucydides, Tacitus, Phillipe de Comines, Machiavel, David Hume--we shall, I think, find that one man may almost be compared with all of these together."

Pope wrote: "Lord Bacon was the greatest genius that England, or perhaps any other country, ever produced." If an examination, more thorough than has. .h.i.therto been made, of the records and literature of his age establishes beyond doubt the truth of the suggestions which have now been put forward, what more can be said? This at any rate, that to him shall be given that t.i.tle to which he aspired and for which he was willing to renounce his own name. He shall be called "The Benefactor of Mankind."

APPENDIX.