Bacon Delia Salter
The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded
These essaies, however, have not been without result. They have been operating incessantly, ever since, directly upon the leading minds, and indirectly upon the minds of men in general, (for many who had never read the book, have all their lives felt its influence), and tending gradually to the clearing up of the human intelligence in 'the practice part of life' in general, and to the development of a common sense on the topics here handled, much more creditable to the species than anything that the author could find stirring in his age. When the works which the propounders of the Great Instauration took pains to get composed by way of filling up their plan of it, a little, corn to be collected and bound, this one will have to find its place among them.
But here, at home, in his own historical name and figure, in his own person, instead of conducting his magnificent scientific experiments on that scale which the genius of his activity, and the largeness of his good will, would have prescribed to him, instead of founding his House of Solomon as he would have founded it, (as that proximity to the throne, when it was the throne of an absolute monarch might have enabled him to found it, if the monarch he found there had been, indeed, what he claimed to be, a lover of learning), instead of such large help and countenance as that of the king, to whom this great proposition was addressed, the philosopher of that time could not even venture on a literary essay in this field under that protection; it was as much as he could do, it was as much as his favor with the king was worth, to slip in here, in this conspicuous place, where it would be sure to be found, sooner or later, the index of his essaies.
'It would be too long,' he says, 'to inquire here into the operation of all these social forces that are making men, that are doing more to make them what they are, than nature herself is doing,' for, 'know thou,' the Poet of this Philosophy says, 'know thou MEN ARE as the TIME IS.' He has included here, in these points which he would have scientifically handled, that which makes times, that which can be altered, that which Advancements of Learning, however, set on foot at first, are sure in the end to alter. 'We will insist upon some one or two as an example of the rest.' And we find that the points he resumes to speak of here, are, indeed, points of primary consequence; social forces that do indeed need a scientific control, effects reported, and precepts concluded. Custom and Habit, Books and Studies, and then a kind of culture, which he says, 'seemeth to be more accurate and elaborate than the rest,' which we find, upon examination, to be a strictly religious culture, and lastly the method to which he gives the preference, as the most compendious and summary in its formative or reforming influence, 'the electing and propounding unto a man's self good and virtuous ends of his life, such as may be in a reasonable sort within his compass to attain.' He says enough under these heads to show the difficulty of writing on a subject where the science has been reported wanting, while the 'Art and Practice' is prescribed.
He lays much stress on CUSTOM and HABIT, and gives some few precepts for its management, 'made out of the pith and heart of sciences,' but he speaks briefly, and chiefly for the purpose of indicating the value he attaches to this point, for he concludes his precepts and observations on it, thus: 'Many other axioms there are, touching the managing of exercise and custom, which being so conducted, – scientifically conducted – do prove, indeed ANOTHER NATURE' ['almost, can change the stamp of nature,' – is Hamlet's word on this point]; 'but being governed by chance, doth commonly prove but AN APE of nature, and bringeth forth that which is lame and counterfeit.' For not less than that is the difference between the scientific administration of these things, from which the mind suffereth, and the blind, hap-hazard one.
But in proceeding to the next point on which he ventures to offer some suggestions, that of BOOKS and STUDIES, we shall do well to take with us that general doctrine of cure, founded upon the nature of things, which he produces under the head of the cure of the body, with a distinct allusion to its proper application here. And it is well to observe how exactly the tone of the criticism in this department, chimes in with that of the criticism already reported here. 'In the consideration of the cures of diseases, I find a deficiency in the receipts of propriety respecting the particular cures of diseases; for the physicians have frustrated the fruit of tradition, and experience, by their magistralities in adding and taking out, and changing quid pro quo in their receipts at their pleasure, COMMANDING SO OVER THE MEDICINE, as the medicine cannot command over the disease:' that is a piece of criticism which appears to belong to the general subject of cure; and here is one which he himself stops to apply to a different branch of it.
'But, lest I grow more particular than is agreeable, either to my intention or proportion, I will conclude this part with the note of one deficiency more, which seemeth to me of GREATEST consequence, which is, that the prescripts in use are too COMPENDIOUS TO ATTAIN THEIR END; for, to my understanding, it is a vain and flattering opinion to think any medicine can be so sovereign, or so happy, as that the receipt or use of it can work any great effect upon the body of man: it were a strange speech, which spoken, or spoken oft, should reclaim a man from a vice to which he were by nature subject; it is order, pursuit, sequence, and interchange of application WHICH IS MIGHTY IN NATURE,' (and it is power we are inquiring for here) 'which, although it requires more exact knowledge in prescribing, and more precise obedience in observing, yet it is recompensed with the magnitude of effects.'
Possessed now of his general theory of cure, we shall better understand his particular suggestions in regard to these medicines and alteratives of the mind and manners, which are here under consideration.
'So if we should handle BOOKS and STUDIES,' he continues, having handled custom and habit a little and their powers, in that profoundly suggestive manner, 'so if we should handle books and studies, and what influence and operation they have upon manners, are there not divers precepts of great caution and direction?' A question to be asked. And he goes on to make some further enquiries and suggestions which have considerably more in them than meets the ear. They appear to involve the intimation that many of our books on moral philosophy, come to us from the youthful and poetic ages of the world, ages in which sentiment and spontaneous conviction supplied the place of learning; for the accumulations of ages of experiment and conclusion, tend to maturity and sobriety of judgment in the race, as do the corresponding accumulations in the individual experience and memory. 'And the reason why books' (which are adapted to the popular belief in these early and unlearned ages) 'are of so little effect towards honesty of life, is that they are not read and revolved– revolved – as they should be, by men in mature years.' But unlearned people are always beginners. And it is dangerous to put them upon the task, or to leave them to the task of remodelling their beliefs and adapting them to the advancing stages of human development. He, too, thinks it is easier to overthrow the old opinions, than it is to discriminate that which is to be conserved in them. The hints here are of the most profoundly cautious kind – as they have need to be – but they point to the danger which attends the advancement of learning when rashly and unwisely conducted, and the danger of introducing opinions which are in advance of the popular culture; dangers of which the history of former times furnished eminent examples and warnings then; warnings which have since been repeated in modern instances. He proposes that books shall be tried by their effects on manners. If they fail to produce HONESTY OF LIFE, and if certain particular forms of truth which were once effective to that end, in the course of a popular advancement, or change of any kind, have lost that virtue, let them be examined; let the translation of them be scientifically accomplished, so that the main truth be not lost in the process, so that men be not compelled by fearful experience to retrace their steps in search of it, even, perhaps, to the resuming of the old, dead form again, with all its cumbrous inefficacies; for the lack of a leadership which should have been able to discriminate for them, and forestall this empirical procedure.
Speaking of books of Moral science in general, and their adaptation to different ages, he says – 'Did not one of the fathers, in great indignation, call POESY "vinum demonum," because it increaseth temptations, perturbations, and vain opinions? Is not the opinion of Aristotle worthy to be regarded, wherein he saith, "That young men are no fit auditors of moral philosophy," because they are not settled from the boiling heat of their affections, nor attempered with time and experience?' [And our Poet, we may remark in passing, seems to have been struck with that same observation; for by a happy coincidence, he appears to have it in his commonplace book too, and he has not only made a note of it, as this one has, but has taken the trouble to translate it into verse. He does, indeed, go a little out of his way in time, to introduce it; but he is a poet who is fond of an anachronism, when it happens to serve his purpose —
'Paris and Troilus, you have both said well;
And on the cause and question now in hand
Have glozed; but, superficially, not much
Unlike young men whom Aristotle thought
Unfit to hear moral philosophy.']
The question is, then, as to the adaptations of forms, of moral instruction to different ages of the human development. For when a decided want of 'honesty of life' shows itself, in any very general manner, under the fullest operation of any given doctrine which is the received one, it is time for men of learning to begin to look about them a little; and it is a time when directions so cautious as these should not by any means be despised by those on whom the responsibility of direction, here, is in any way devolved.
'And doth it not hereof come, that those excellent books and discourses of the ancient writers, whereby they have persuaded unto virtue most effectually, by representing her in state and majesty, and popular opinions against virtue in their parasites' coats, fit to be scorned and derided, are of so little effect towards honesty of life —
[Polonius. – Honest, my lord? Hamlet. – Ay, honest.]
' – because they are not read and revolved by men, in their mature and settled years, but confined almost to boys and beginners? But is it not true, also, that much less young men are fit auditors of matters of policy till they have been thoroughly seasoned in religion and morality, lest their judgments be corrupted, and made apt to think that there are no true differences of things, but according to utility and fortune.'
By putting in here two or three of those 'elegant sentences' which the author has taken out from their connections in his discourses, and strung together, by way of making more perceptible points and stronger impressions with them, according to that theory of his in regard to aphorisms already quoted, we shall better understand this passage, for the connection in which it is introduced here tends somewhat to involve and obscure the meaning. 'In removing superstitions,' he tells us, then, in this so pointed manner, 'care should be had the good be not taken away with the bad, which commonly is done when the people is the physician.' 'Things will have their first or second agitation.' [Prima Philosophia – pith and heart of sciences: the author of this aphorism is sound and grounded.] 'If they be not tossed on the waves of counsel, they will be tossed on the waves of fortune.' That last 'tossing' requires a second cogitation. There might have been a more direct way of expressing it; but this author prefers similes in such cases, he tells us. But here is more on the same subject. 'It were good that men in their RENOVATIONS follow the example of time itself, which, indeed, innovateth greatly, but quietly, and by degrees scarce to be perceived;' and 'Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.' These are the sentiments and opinions of that man of science, whose works we are now opening, not caring under what particular name or form we may find them. One or two of these observations do not sound at all like prescience now; but at the time when they were given out as precepts of direction, it required that acquaintance with the nature of things in general which is derived from a large and studious observation of particulars, to put them into a form so oracular.
But this general suggestion with regard to our books of moral philosophy, and their adaptation to the largest effect on the will and appetite under the given conditions of time – conditions which involve the instruction of masses of men, in whom affection predominates – men in whom judgment is not yet matured – men not attempered with the time and experience of ages, by means of those preservations of it which the traditions of learning make; beside this general suggestion in regard to these so potent instrumentalities in manners, he has another to make, one in which this general proposition to substitute learning for preconception in practical matters, – at least, as far as may be, comes out again in the form of criticism, and of a most specially significant kind. It is a point which he touches lightly here; but one which he touches again and again in other parts of this work, and one which he resumes at large in his practical ethics.
'Again, is there not a caution likewise to be given of the doctrines of moralities themselves, some kinds of them, lest they make men too precise, arrogant, incompatible, as Cicero saith of Cato, in Marco Catone: "Haec bona quae videmus divina et egregia ipsius scitote esse propria: quae nonnunquam requirimus, ea sunt omnia non a natura, sed a magistro?"'
And after glancing at the specific subject of remedial agencies which are within the scope of our revision and renovation, under some other heads, concluding with that which is of all others the most compendious and summary, and again the most noble and effectual to the reducing of the mind unto virtue and good estate, he concludes this whole part, this part in which the points and outlines of the new science – that radical human science which he has dared to report deficient, come out with such masterly grasp and precision, – he concludes this whole part in the words which follow, – words which it will take the author's own doctrine of interpretation to open. For this is one of those passages which he commends to the second cogitation of the reader, and he knew if 'the times that were nearer' were not able to read it, 'the times that were farther off' would find it clear enough.
'Therefore I do conclude this part of Moral Knowledge concerning the culture and regiment of the Mind; wherein if any man, considering the facts thereof which I have enumerated, do judge that my labour is to COLLECT INTO AN ART OR SCIENCE, that which hath been pretermitted by others, as matters of common sense and experience, he judgeth well.' The practised eye will detect on the surface here, some marks of that style which this author recommends in such cases: especially where such strong pre-occupations exist; already we perceive that this is one of those sentences which is addressed to the skill of the interpreter; in which, by means of a careful selection and collocation of words, two or more meanings are conveyed under one form of expression. And it may not be amiss to remember here, that this is a style, according to the author's own description of it elsewhere, in which the more involved and enigmatical passages sometimes admit of several readings, each having its own pertinence and value, according to the mental condition of the reader; and that it is a style in which even the delicate, collateral sounds, that are distinctly included in this art of tradition, must come in sometimes in the more critical places, in aid of the interpretation. 'But what if it be an harangue whereon his life depends?'
l. – If any man considering the parts thereof, which I have enumerated, do judge that MY LABOUR IS to collect into an ART or SCIENCE that which hath been PRETER-MITTED by others, he judgeth well.
2. – If any man do judge that my labour is to collect into an ART or SCIENCE that which hath been pretermitted by others AS MATTERS OF COMMON SENSE and EXPERIENCE, he judgeth well.
3. – If any man considering the PARTS THEREOF WHICH I HAVE ENUMERATED, do judge that my labor is to collect into an ART or SCIENCE, that which hath been pretermitted by OTHERS, as matters of common sense and experience, he judgeth well.
But if there be any doubt, about the more critical of these meanings, let us read on, and we shall find the criticism of this great and greatest proposition, the proposition to substitute learning for preconception, in the main department of human practice, brought out with all the emphasis and significance which becomes the close of so great a period in sciences, and not without a little flowering of that rhetoric, in which beauty is the incident, and discretion is more than eloquence.
'But as Philocrates sported with Demosthenes you may not marvel, Athenians, that Demosthenes and I do differ, for he drinketh water, and I drink wine. And like as we read of an ancient parable of the two gates of sleep —
Sunt geminae somni portae, quarum altera fertur
Cornea, qua veris facilis datur exitus umbris:
Altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto,
Sed falsa ad coelum mittunt insomnia manes.
'So if we put on sobriety and attention we shall find it a sure maxim in knowledge, that the more pleasant liquor of wine is the more vaporous, and the braver gate of ivory sendeth forth the falser dreams.'
CHAPTER VI
METHOD OF CONVEYING THE WISDOM OF THE MODERNS
It is a basilisk unto mine eyes, —
Kills me to look on't,
This fierce abridgment
Hath to it circumstantial branches, which
Distinction should be rich in.
Cymbeline.
This whole subject is introduced here in its natural and inevitable connection with that special form of Delivery and Tradition which it required. For we find that connection indicated here, where the matter of the tradition, and that part of it which specially requires this form is treated, and we find the form itself specified here incidentally, but not less unmistakeably, that it is in that part of the work where the Art of Tradition is the primary subject. In bestowing on 'the parts' of this science, which the propounder of it is here enumerating – that consideration which the concluding paragraph invites to them, we find, not only the fields clearly marked out, in which he is labouring to collect into an art and science, that which has hitherto been conducted without art or science, and left to common sense and experience, the fields in which these goodly observations grow, of which men have hitherto been content to gather a poesy to carry in their hands, – (observations which he will bring home to his confectionery, in such new and amazing prodigality and selection), but we find also the very form which these new collections, with the new precepts concluded on them, would naturally take, and that it is one in which these new parts of the new science and its art, which he is labouring to constitute, might very well come out, at such a time, without being recognised as philosophy at all, – might even be brought out by other men without science, as matters of common sense and experience; though the world would have to concede, and the longer the study went on, the more it would be inclined to concede, that the common sense and experience was upon the whole somewhat uncommon, and some who perceived its reaches, without finding that it was art or science, would even be inclined to call it preternatural.
And when he tells us, that the first step in the New Science is the dissection of character, and the production and exhibition of certain scientifically constructed portraits, by means of which this may be effected, portraits which shall represent in their type-form by means of 'illustrious instances,' the several characters and tempers of men's natures and dispositions 'that the secret disposition of each particular man may be laid open, and from a knowledge of the whole, the precepts concerning the cures of the mind may be more rightly concluded,' – surely here, to a man of learning, the form, – the form in which these artistically composed diagrams will be found, is not doubtfully indicated.
And when, at the next step, we come to the history of 'the affections,' and are told distinctly that here philosophy, the philosophy of practice, must needs descend from the abstraction, and generalities of the ancient morality, for those observations and experiments which it is the legitimate business of the poet to conduct, though the poet, in conducting these observations and experiments, has hitherto been wanting in the rigor which science requires, when we are told that philosophy must inevitably enter here, that department of learning, of which the true poet is 'the doctor,' – surely here at least, we know where we are. Certainly it is not the fault of the author of the Great Instauration if we do not know what department of learning the collections of the new learning which he claims to have made will be found in – if found at all, must be found in. It is not his fault if we do not know in what department to look for the applications of the Novum Organum to those 'noblest subjects' on which he preferred to try its powers, he tells us. Here at least – the Index to these missing books – is clear enough.
But in his treatment of Poetry, as one of the three grand departments of Human Learning, for not less noble than that is the place he openly assigns to it, though that open and primary treatment of it, is superficially brief, he contrives to insert in it, his deliberate, scientific preference of it, as a means of effective scientific exhibition, to either of the two graver parts, which he has associated with it – to history on the one hand, as corresponding to the faculty of memory, and to philosophy or mere abstract statement on the other, as corresponding to the faculty of Reason; for it is that great radical department of learning, which is referred to the Imagination, that constitutes in this distribution of learning the third grand division of it. He shows us here, in a few words, under different points and heads, what masterly facilities, what indispensable, incomparable powers it has for that purpose. There is a form of it, 'which is as A VISIBLE HISTORY, and is an image of actions as if they were present, as history is, of actions that are past.' There is a form of it which is applied only to express some special purpose or conceit, which was used of old by philosophers to express any point of reason more sharp and subtle than the vulgar, and, nevertheless, now and at all times these allusive parabolical poems do retain much life and vigour because – note it, – note that because, – that two-fold because, because REASON CANNOT be so SENSIBLE, nor EXAMPLES SO FIT. And he adds, also, 'there remains another use of this poesy, opposite to the one just mentioned, for that use tendeth to demonstrate and illustrate that which is taught or delivered; and this other to retire and obscure it: that is, when the secrets and mysteries of religion, policy or philosophy are involved in fables and parables.'
But under the cover of introducing the 'Wisdom of the Ancients,' and the form in which that was conveyed, he explains more at large the conditions which this kind of exhibition best meets; he claims it as a proper form of learning, and tells us outright, that the New Science must be conveyed in it. He has left us here, all prepared to our hands, precisely the argument which the subject now under consideration requires.
'Upon deliberate consideration, my judgment is, that a concealed instruction and allegory, was originally intended in many of the ancient fables; observing that some fables discover a great and evident similitude, relation, and connection with the things they signify, as well in the structure of the fable, as in the propriety of the names whereby the persons or actors are characterised, insomuch that no one could positively deny a sense and meaning to be from the first intended and purposely shadowed out in them'; and he mentions some instances of this kind; and the first is a very explanatory one, tending to throw light upon the proceedings of men whose rebellions, so far as political action is concerned, have been successfully repressed. And he takes occasion to introduce this particular fable repeatedly in similar connections. 'For who can hear that Fame, after the giants were destroyed, sprung up as their posthumous sister, and not apply it to the clamour of parties, and the seditious rumours which commonly fly about upon the quelling of insurrections. Or who, upon hearing that memorable expedition of the gods against the giants, when the braying of Silenus' ass greatly contributed in putting the giants to flight, does not clearly conceive that this directly points to the monstrous enterprises of rebellious subjects, which are frequently disappointed and frustrated by vain fears and empty rumours. Nor is it wonder if sometimes a piece of history or other things are introduced by way of ornament, or if the times of the action are confounded,' [the very likeliest thing in the world to happen; things are often 'forced in time' as he has given us to understand in complimenting a king's book where the person was absent but not the occasion], 'or if part of one fable be tacked to another, for all this must necessarily happen, as the fables were the invention of men who lived in different ages, and had different views, some of them being ancient, others more modern, some having an eye to natural philosophy, others to morality and civil policy.'
This appears to be just the kind of criticism we happen to be in need of in conducting our present inquiry, and the passage which follows is not less to the purpose.
For, having given some other reasons for this opinion he has expressed in regard to the concealed doctrine of the ancients, he concludes in this manner: 'But if any one shall, notwithstanding this, contend that allegories are always adventitious, and no way native or genuinely contained in them, we might here leave him undisturbed in the gravity of that judgment, though we cannot but think it somewhat dull and phlegmatic, and, if it were worth the trouble, proceed to another kind of argument.' And, apparently, the argument he proceeds to, is worth some trouble, since he takes pains to bring it out so cautiously, under so many different heads, with such iteration and fulness, taking care to insert it so many times in his work on the Advancement of Learning, and here producing it again in his Introduction to the Wisdom of the Ancients, accompanied with a distinct assurance that it is not the wisdom of the ancients he is concerning himself about, and their necessities and helps and instruments; though if any one persists in thinking that it is, he is not disposed to disturb him in the gravity of that judgment. He honestly thinks that they had indeed such intentions as those that he describes; but that is a question for the curious, and he has other work on hand; he happens to be one, whose views of learning and its uses, do not keep him long on questions of mere curiosity. It is with the Moderns, and not with the Ancients that he has to deal; it is the present and the future, and not the past that he 'breaks his sleeps' for. Whether the Ancients used those fables for purposes of innovation, and gradual encroachment on error or not, here is a Modern, he tells us, who for one, cannot dispense with them in his teaching.
For having disposed of his graver readers – those of the dull and phlegmatic kind – in the preceding paragraph, and not thinking it worth exactly that kind of trouble it would have cost then to make himself more explicit for the sake of reaching their apprehension, he proceeds to the following argument, which is not wanting in clearness for 'those who happen to be of his ear.'
'Men have proposed to answer two different and contrary ends by the use of Parables, for parables serve as well to instruct and illustrate, as to wrap up and envelope:' [and what is more, they serve at once that double purpose] 'so that for the present we drop the concealed use, and suppose the ancient fables to be vague undeterminate things formed for amusement, still the other use must remain, and can never be given up. And every man of any learning must readily allow that THIS METHOD of INSTRUCTION is grave, sober, exceedingly useful, and sometimes necessary in the sciences, as it opens an easy and familiar passage to the human understanding, IN ALL NEW DISCOVERIES that are abstruse and out of the road of vulgar opinion. Hence, in the first ages, when such inventions and conclusions of the human reason as are now trite and common, were rare and little known, all things abounded with fables, parables, similes, comparisons, allusions, which were not intended to conceal, but to inform and teach, whilst the minds of men continued rude and unpractised in matters of subtlety and speculation, and even impatient, and in a manner incapable of receiving such things as did not directly fall under and strike the senses.' [And those ages were not gone by, it seems, for these are the very men of whom Hamlet speaks, 'who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise.'] 'For as hieroglyphics were in use before writings, so were parables in use before argument. And even to this day, if any man would let NEW LIGHT IN upon the human understanding, [who was it that proposed to do that?] and conquer prejudices without raising animosities, OPPOSITION, or DISTURBANCE – [who was it that proposed to do that precisely] – he must still– [note it] – he must still go in the same path, and have recourse to the like method.' Where are they then? Search and see. Where are they? – The lost Fables of the New Philosophy? 'To conclude, the knowledge of the earlier ages was either great or happy; great, if by design they made use of tropes and figures; happy, if whilst they had other views they afforded matter and occasion to such noble contemplations. Let either be the case, our pains perhaps will not be misemployed, whether we illustrate ANTIQUITY or [hear] THINGS THEMSELVES.