He has, however, only drawn the outline, and | but when they decayed in arms, then greatness filled up two or three detached parts, reserving the minute investigation of the whole subject for other works. According to his usual method, he commences the tract by clearing the way, in the removal of some erroneous opinions, on the dependence of government upon extent of territory ;-upon wealth;-upon fruitfulness of soil;-and upon fortified towns. Each of these subjects it was his intention to have separately considered, but he has in this fragment completed only the two first sections. To expose the error, that the strength of a kingdom depends upon the extent of territory, “Look,” he says, "at the kingdom of Persia, which extended from Egypt to Bactria and the borders of the East, and yet was overthrown and conquered by a nation not much bigger than the isle of Britain. Look, too, at the state of Rome, which, when too extensive, became no better than a carcass, whereupon all the vultures and birds of prey of the world did seize and ravine for many ages; as a perpetual monument of the essential differences between the scale of miles and the scale of forces: and that the natural arms of each province, or the protecting arms of the principal state, may, when the territory is too extensive, be unable to counteract the two dangers incident to every government, foreign invasion and inward rebellion." became a burden; like as great stature in a na. tural body is some advantage in youth, but is a burden in age; so it is with great territory which when a state beginneth to decline, doth make it stoop and buckle so much the faster." And with respect to each part being profitable to the whole, he says, in allusion to the fable in Æsop, by which Agrippa appeased the tumult, that health of body and of state is promoted by the due action of all its parts, "Some provinces are more wealthy, some more populous, and some more warlike; some situate aptly for the excluding or expulsing of foreigners, and some for the annoying and bridling of suspected and tumultuous subjects: some are profitable in present, and some may be converted and improved to profit by plantations and good policy." 6 He proceeds with the same minuteness to expose the error, that the power of government consists in riches; by explaining that the real power of wealth depends upon mediocrity, joined with martial valour and intelligence. 6 The importance of martial valour and high chivalric spirit he avails himself of every opportunity to enforce. "Well," he says, "did Solon, who was no contemplative man, say to Crœsus, upon his showing him his great treasures, When another comes with iron he will be master of all your gold:' so Machiavel justly derideth the adage that money is the sinews of war, by saying, There are no sinews of war but the sinews and muscles of men's arms.'" Having thus generally refuted this erroneous opinion, he beautifully explains that the power of territory, as to extent, consists in compactness, So impressed was he with the importance of —with the heart sufficient to support the extremi-elevating the national character, that, three years ties; the arms, or martial virtues, answerable to the greatness of dominion;-and every part of the state profitable to the whole. Each of these sections is explained with his usual extensive and minute investigation, and his usual felicity of familiar illustration. With respect to compactness, he says, "Remember the tortoise, which, when any part is put forth from the shell, is endangered." With respect to the heart being sufficient to sustain the extremities, "Remember, "he says, "that the state of Rome, when it grew great, was compelled to naturalize the Latins, because the Roman stem could not bear the provinces and Italy both as branches; and the like they were contented after to do to most of the Gauls: and Sparta, when it embraced a larger empire, was compared to a river, which, after it had run a great way, and taken other rivers and streams into it, ran strong and mighty, but about the head and fountain was shallow and weak." With respect to martial valour, "Look," he says, "at every conquered state, at Persia and at Rome, which, while they flourished in arms, the Jargeness of territory was a strength to them, and added forces, added treasure, added reputation: before his death, he spoke with still greater energy upon this subject, in his treatise upon the Greatness of States. "Above all things," he says, "cultivate a stout and warlike disposition of the people; for walled towns, stored arsenals, goodly races of horses, chariots of war, elephants, ordnance, artillery, and the like, all this is but sheep in a lion's skin, unless the breeding and disposition of the people be warlike;" and, "as to the illusion that wealth may buy assistance, let the state which trusts to mercenary forces ever remember, that, by these purchases, if it spread its feathers for a time beyond the compass of its nest, it will mew them soon after;" and, in this spirit, he records various maxims to counteract the debasement of character attendant upon the worship of gold: and, above all, the evil of sedentary and within-door mechanical arts, requiring rather the finger than the arm: which in Sparta, Athens, and Rome, was left to slaves, and amongst Christians should be the employment of aliens, and not of the natives, who should be tillers of the ground, free servants, and labourers in strong and manly arts. Such were the opinions of Bacon. How far they will meet with the approbation of political econo grievances. the union of the kingdoms and the union of the laws; during which he availed himself, according to his usual mode, when opportunity offered, to recommend as the first reform, the reform of the law, saying, "The mode of uniting the laws seemeth to me no less excellent than the work itself; for if both laws shall be united, it is of necessity for preparation and inducement thereunto, that our own laws be reviewed and recompiled; than the which, I think, there cannot be a work that his majesty can undertake in these his times of peace, more politic, more honourable, nor more beneficial to his subjects, for all ages.' mists in these enlightened times, it is not neces- charge of the Commons respecting ecclesiastical sary in this analysis of his sentiments, to inquire. If he is in error, he may, in the infancy of the In every debate in this session he was the pow science of government, be pardoned for suppos-erful advocate, in speeches which now exist, for ing that the national character would not be elevated by making sentient man a machine, or by those processes, by which bones and sinews, life and all that adorns life, is transmuted into gold. The bell by which the labourers are summoned to these many-windowed fabrics in our manufacturing towns, sweeter to the lovers of gain than holy bell that tolls to parish church, would have sounded upon Bacon's ear with harsher import than the Norman curfew. He may be pardoned, though he should warn us that in these temples, not of liberty, the national character will not be elevated by the employment of children, not in the temper of Him who took them in his arms, put his hands upon them and blessed them, but in never-ceasing labour, with their morals sapped and undermined, their characters lowered and debased. It is possible that if he had witnessed the cowering looks and creeping gait, or shameless mirth of these little slaves, he might have thought of Thebes, or Tyre, or Palmyra, and of the instability of all human governments, whatever their present riches or grandeur may be, unless the people are elevated by virtue. Such, however, were his sentiments; and, even if they are erroneous, it cannot but be lamented that the only parts of this work which are completed and applied to Great Britain, are those which relate to extent and wealth. The remaining errors of fruitfulness of the soil, and fortified towns, are not investigated. Having thus cleared the way by showing in what the strength of government does not consist, he intended to explain in what it did consist: 1. In a fit situation, to which his observations are confined. 2. In the population and breed of men. 3. In the valour and military disposition of the people. 4. In the fitness of every man to be a soldier. 5. In the temper of the government to elevate the national character; and, 6. In command of the sea: the dowry of Great Britain. During the next terms and the next sessions of parliament, (1605, Æt. 45,) his legal and political exertions continued without intermission. Committees were appointed for the consideration of subsidies; of articles for religion; purveyors; recusants; restoring deposed ministers; abuses of the Marshalsea court, and for the better execution of penal laws in ecclesiastical causes. He was a member of them all; and, mindful of the mode in which, during the late session, he had discharged his duties as representative of the House, he was elected to deliver to the king the In the midst of these laborious occupations he published his celebrated work upon "the Advancement of Learning," which professes to be a survey of the then existing knowledge, with a designation of the parts of science which were unexplored; the cultivated parts of the intellectual world, and the deserts; a finished picture, with an outline of what was untouched. Within the outline is included the whole of science. After having examined the objections to learning; the advantages of learning;-the places of learning, or universities;—the books of learning, or libraries, "the shrines where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed;"-after having thus cleared the way, and, as it were, "made silence, to have the true nature of learning better heard and understood," he investigates all knowledge: 1st. Relating to the Memory, or History. sophy. Such is the outline: within it the work is minutely arranged, abounds with great felicity of expression, and nervous language: but not contenting himself, by such arrangement, with the mere exhibition of truth, he adorned it with familiar, simple, and splendid imagery. When speaking of the error of common minds retiring from active life, he says, " Pythagoras, being asked what he was, answered, that if Hiero were ever at the Olympic games, he knew the manner, that some came as merchants to utter their commodities, and some came to make good cheer, and some came to look on, and that he was one of them that came to look on; but men must know, that in this theatre of man's life, it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers-on." So, when explaining the danger to which intellect is exposed of running out into sensuality on its retirement from active life, he says, in another work, "When I was chancellor I told Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, that I would willingly for- for philosophy; and in aphorisms, the Novum bear 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."" 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; 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 ques--and of some of the advantages of knowledge. tion the immortality of the soul, or derogate from If, in compliance with the custom of the times, its sovereignty over the body. The infant in its or from an opinion that wisdom, although it mother's womb partakes of the accidents of its ought not to stoop to persons, should submit to mother, but is separable in due season." So, too, occasions, or from a morbid anxiety to accelerate when explaining that the body is decomposed by the advancement of knowledge, Bacon could dethe depredation of innate spirit and of ambient lude himself by the supposition that this fulsome air, and that if the action of these causes can be dedication to the king was consistent either with prevented, the body will defy decomposition; the simplicity or dignity of philosophy, he must "Have you never," he says, "seen a fly in have forgotten what Seneca said to Nero: "Suffer amber, more beautifully entombed than an Egyp- me to stay here a little longer with thee, not to tian monarch?" and, when speaking of the re-flatter thine ear, for that is not my custom, as I semblance 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. 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 It must not be supposed that, because he illus-not to give him offence, or whereby to be able to trated his thoughts, he was misled by imagina- give him faithful counsel; or whereby to stand upon tion, which never had precedence, but always reasonable guard and caution with respect to a followed in the train of his reason: or, because man's self: but to be speculative into another he had recourse to arrangement, that he was en-man, to the end to know how to work him, or wind slaved 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 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." If his work had been addressed to the philoso- | frenzy is a good emblem; for words are but phy of the country, instead of having confined his images of matter, and to fall in love with thein is professional objections to divines and politicians, all one as to fall in love with a picture." he would have explained that, as our opinions always constitute our intellectual and often our worldly wealth, prejudice is common to us all, and is particularly conspicuous amongst all professional men, with respect to the sciences which they profess. His objections to learning from the errors of learned men, contain his observations upon the study of words; upon useless knowledge; and upon falsehood, called by him delicate learning; contentious learning; and fantastical learning; all of them erroneously considered objections to learning; as the study of words is merely the selection of one species of knowledge; and contentious learning is only the conflict of opinion which ever exists when any science is in progress, and the way from sense to the understanding is not sufficiently cleared; and falsehood is one of the consequences attendant upon inquiry, as our opinions, being formed not only by impressions upon our senses, but by confidence in the communication of others and our own reasonings, unavoidably teem with error, which can by time alone be corrected. As it is Bacon's doctrine that knowledge consists in understanding the properties of creatures and the names by which they are called, "the occupation of Adam in Paradise," it may seem extraordinary that he should not have formed a higher estimate than he appears to have formed of the study of words. Words assist thought; they teach us correctness; they enable us to acquire the knowledge and character of other nations; and the study of ancient literature in particular, if it is not an exercise of the intellect, is a discipline of humanity; if it do not strengthen the understanding, it softens and refines the taste; it gives us liberal views; it accustoms the mind to take an interest in things foreign to itself; to love virtue for its own sake; to prefer glory to riches, and to fix our thoughts on the remote and perinanent, instead of narrow and fleeting objects. It teaches us to believe that there is really something great and excellent in the world, surviving all the shocks and accidents and fluctuations of opinion, and raises us above that low and servile fear, which bows only to present power and upstart authority. Rome and Athens filled a place in the history of mankind which can never be occupied again. They were two cities set on a hill which cannot be hid; all eyes have seen them, and their light shines like a mighty sea-mark into the abyss of time: "Still green with bays each ancient altar stands." But, notwithstanding these advantages, Bacon says, "the studying words and not matter is a distemper of learning, of which Pygmalion's These different subjects are classed under the quaint expression of "Distempers of Learning," to which, that the metaphor may be preserved, he has appended various other defects, under the more quaint term of " Peccant Humours of Learning.” His observations upon the advantages of learning, although encumbered by fanciful and minute analysis, abound with beauty; for, not contenting himself with the simple position with which philosophy would be satisfied, that knowledge teaches us how to select what is beneficial, and avoid what is injurious, he enumerates various modes, divine and human, by which the happiness resulting from knowledge ever has been and ever will be manifested. After having stated what he terms divine proofs of the advantages of knowledge, he says, the human proofs are: 1. Learning diminishes afflictions from nature. 2. Learning diminishes evils from man to man. 3. There is a union between learning and military virtue. 4. Learning improves private virtues. 1. It takes away the barbarism of men's minds. 2. It takes away levity, temerity, and in- 3. It takes away vain admiration, 5. It is power. 6. It advances fortune. 7. It is our greatest source of delight. 8. It insures immortality. These positions are proved by all the force of his reason, and adorned by all the beauty of his imagination. When speaking of the power of knowledge to repress the inconveniences which arise from man to man, he says, "In Orpheus's theatre all beasts and birds assembled, and, forgetting their several appetites, some of prey, some of game, some of quarrel, stood all sociably together, listening to the airs and accords of the harp; the sound whereof no sooner ceased, or was drowned by some louder noise, but every beast returned to his own nature; wherein is aptly described the nature and condition of men, who are full of savage and unreclaimed desires of profit, of lust, of revenge; which, as long as they give ear to precepts, to laws, to religion, sweetly touched with eloquence and persuasion of books, of sermons, of harangues, so long is society and peace maintained; but if these instruments be silent, or sedition and tumult mak them not audible, all things dissolve into anarchy | tigation of every species of philosophy, divine, and confusion." So when explaining, amidst the advantages of knowledge, its excellency in diffusing happiness through succeeding ages, he says, "Let us conclude with the dignity and excellency of knowledge and learning in that whereunto man's nature doth most aspire; which is, immortality or continuance for to this tendeth generation, and raising of houses and families; to this buildings, foundations, and monuments; to this tendeth the desire of memory, fame, and celebration, and, in effect, the strength of all other human desires. We see then how far the monuments of wit and learning are more durable than the monuments of power or of the hands. For, have not the verses of Homer continued twenty-five hundred years, or more, without the loss of a syllable or letter; during which time infinite palaces, temples, castles, cities, have been decayed and destroyed? It is not possible to have the true pictures or statues of Cyrus, Alexander, Cæsar; no, nor of the kings or great personages of much later years; for the originals cannot last, and the copies cannot but leese of the life and truth: but the images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books exempted from the wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation. Neither are they fitly to be called images, because they generate still, and cast their seeds in the minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages; so that, if the invention of the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, and consociateth the most remote regions in participa tion of their fruits, how much more are letters to be magnified, which, as ships, pass through the vast seas of time, and make ages so distant to participate of the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, the one of the other?" After having thus explained some of the blessings attendant upon knowledge, he concludes the first book with lamenting that these blessings are not more generally preferred. The second book, after various preliminary observations, and particularly upon the defects of universities, of which, from the supposition that they are formed rather for the discovery of new knowledge than for diffusing the knowledge of our predecessors, he, through life, seems to have formed too high an estimate, he arranges and adorns every species of history, which he includes within the province of memory, and every species of poetry, by which imagination can ..elevate the mind from the dungeon of the body to the enjoying its own divine essence:"-and, passing from poetry, by saying, "but it is not good to stop too long in the theatre: let us now pass on to the judicial place or palace of the mind, which we are to approach and view with more reverence and attention," he proceeds to the inves natural, and human, of which, from his analysis of human philosophy, or the science of man, some conception may be formed of the extent and perfection of the different parts of the work. These different subjects, exhibited with this perspicuity, are adorned with beautiful illustration and imagery: as, when explaining the doctrine of the will, divided into the image of good, or the exhibition of truth, and the culture or Georgics of the mind, which is its husbandry or tillage, so as to love the truth which it sees, he says, "The neglecting these Georgics seemeth to me no better than to exhibit a fair image or statue, beautiful to behold, but without life or motion." Having thus made a small globe of the intellectual world, he, looking at the work he had made, and hoping that it was good, thus concludes: "And being now 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. And surely, when I set before me the condition of these times, in which learning hath made her third visitation or circuit in all the qua lities thereof: as the excellency and vivacity of the wits of this age; the noble helps and lights which we have by the travails of ancient writers; the art of printing, which communicateth books to men of all fortunes; the openness of the world by navigation, which hath disclosed multitudes of experiments, and a mass of natural history; the leisure wherewith these times abound, not employing men so generally in civil business as the states of Græcia did, in respect of their popularity, and the state of Rome, in respect of the greatness of their monarchy; the present disposition of these times at this instant to peace; the consumption of all that ever can be said in controversies of religion, which have so much diverted men from other sciences; and the inseparable property of time, which is ever more and more to disclose truth,-I cannot but be raised to this persuasion, that this third period of time will far surpass that of the Grecian and Roman learning; only if men will know their own strength, and their own weakness both; and take, one from the other, light of invention, and not fire of contradiction; and esteem of the inquisition of truth as of an enterprise, and not as of a quality or ornament; and employ wit and magnificence to things of worth and excellency, and not to things vulgar and of popular estimation." Of this work he presented copies to the King |