Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/204

 being farthest distant in place from these two regions of heat, are most distant in nature, that is, coldest; which is that they term cold or hot "per antiperistasin," that is, environing by contraries: which was pleasantly taken hold of by him that said, that an honest man, in these days, must needs be more honest than in ages heretofore, "propter antiperistasin," because the shutting of him in the midst of contraries, must needs make the honesty stronger and more compact in itself.

The reprehension of this colour is: first, many things of amplitude in their kind do as it were ingross to themselves all, and leave that which is next them most destitute: as the shoots or underwood, that grow near a great and spread tree, is the most pined and shrubby wood of the field, because the great tree doth deprive and deceive them of sap and nourishment; so he saith well, "divitus servi maxime servi;" and the comparison was pleasant of him, that compared courtiers attendant in the courts of princes without great place or office, to fasting-days, which were next the holydays, but otherwise were the leanest days in all the week.

Another reprehension is, that things of greatness and predominancy, though they do not extenuate the things adjoining in substance, yet they drown them and obscure them in show and appearance; and therefore the astronomers say, That whereas in all other planets conjunction is the perfectest amity; the sun contrariwise is good by aspect, but evil by conjunction.

A third reprehension is, because evil approacheth to good sometimes for concealment, sometimes for protection; and good to evil for conversion and reformation. So hypocrisy draweth near to religion for coverts and hiding itself; "sæpe latet vitium proximitate boni:" and sanctuary-men, which were commonly inordinate men and malefactors, were wont to be nearest to priests and prelates, and holy men; for the majesty of good things is such, as the confines of them are revered. On the other side, our Saviour, charged with nearness of publicans and rioters, said, "The physician approacheth the sick rather than the whole."

reason is, because the sting and remorse of the mind accusing itself doubleth all adversity: contrariwise, the considering and recording inwardly, that a man is clear and free from fault and just imputation, doth attempter outward calamities. For if the evil be in the sense, and in the conscience both, there is a gemination of it; but if evil be in the one, and comfort in the other, it is a kind of compensation: so the poets in tragedies do make the most passionate lamentations, and those that forerun final despair, to be accusing, questioning, and torturing of a man's self.

And contrariwise, the extremities of worthy persons have been annihilated in the consideration of their own good deserving. Besides, when the evil cometh from without, there is left a kind of evaporation of grief, if it come by human injury, either by indignation, and meditating of revenge from ourselves, or by expecting or foreconceiving that Nemesis and retribution will take hold of the authors of our hurt: or if it be by fortune or accident, yet there is left a kind of expostulation against the divine powers;

But where the evil is derived from a man's own fault, there all strikes deadly inwards and suffocateth.

The reprehension of this colour is, first in respect of hope, for reformation of our faults is "in nostra potestate;" but amendment of our fortune simply is not. Therefore, Demosthenes, in many of his orations, saith thus to the people of Athens: "That which having regard to the time past is the worst point and circumstance of all the rest; that as to the time to come is the best: what is that? Even this, that by your sloth, irresolution, and misgovernment, your affairs are grown to this declination and decay. For had you used and ordered your means and forces to the best, and done your parts every way to the full, and, notwithstanding, your matters should have gone backward in this manner, as they do, there had been no hope left of recovery or reparation; but since it hath been only by your own errors," &c. So Epictetus in his degrees saith, "The worst state of man is to accuse external things, better than that to accuse a man's self, and best of all to accuse neither." Another reprehension of this colour is, in respect of the well-bearing of evils wherewith a man can charge nobody but himself, which maketh them the less

And therefore many natures that are either extremely proud, and will take no fault to themselves, or else very true and cleaving to themselves, when they see the blame of any thing that falls out ill must light upon themselves, have no other shift but to bear it out well, and to make the least of it; for as we see when sometimes a fault is committed, and before it be known who is to blame, much ado is made of it; but after, if it appear to be done by a son, or by a wife, or by a near friend, then it is light made of: so much more when a man must take it upon himself. And therefore it is commonly seen, that women that marry husbands of their own choosing against