Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/233

 often clear the passage and current to a man's fortune. But certain it is, whether it be believed or no, that as the most excellent of metals, gold, is of all other the most pliant, and most enduring to be wrought: so of all living and breathing substances, the perfectest man is the most susceptible of help, improvement, impression, and alteration; and not only in his body, but in his mind and spirit; and there again not only in his appetite and affection, but in his powers of wit and reason.

For as to the body of man, we find many and strange experiences, how nature is overwrought by custom, even in actions that seem of most difficulty and least possible. As first in voluntary motion, which though it be termed voluntary, yet the highest degrees of it are not voluntary; for it is in my power and will to run; but to run faster than according to my lightness or disposition of body, is not in my power nor will. We see the industry and practice of tumblers and funambulos what effects of great wonder it bringeth the body of man unto. So for suffering of pain and dolour, which is thought, so contrary to the nature of man, there is much example of penances in strict orders of superstition, what they do endure such as may well verify the report of the Spartan boys, which were wont to be scourged upon the altar so bitterly as sometimes they died of it, and yet were never heard to complain. And to pass to those faculties which are reckoned more involuntary, as long fasting and abstinence, and the contrary extreme, voracity. The leaving and forbearing the use of drink for altogether, the enduring vehement cold and the like; there have not wanted, neither do want divers examples of strange victories over the body in every of these. Nay, in respiration, the proof hath been of some, who, by continual use of diving and working under the water, have brought themselves to be able to hold their breath an incredible time; and others that have been able, without suffocation, to endure the stifling breath of an oven or furnace, so heated as, though it did not scald nor burn, yet it was many degrees too hot for any man not made to it to breathe or take in. And some impostors and counterfeits, likewise, have been able to wreath and cast their bodies into strange forms and motions: yea, and others to bring themselves into trances and astonishments. All which examples do demonstrate how variously, and how to high points and degrees, the body of man may be (as it were) moulded and wrought. And if any man conceive that it is some secret propriety of nature that hath been in these persons which hav attained to those points, and that it is not open for every man to do the like, though he had been put to it; for which cause such things come but very rarely to pass; it is true, no doubt, but some persons nre apter than others; but so as the more aptness causeth perfection, but the less aptness doth not disable; so that, for example, the more apt child, that is taken to be made a funambulo, will prove more excellent in his feats; but the less apt will be gregarius funambulo also. And there is small question, but that these abilities would have been more common, and others of like sort not attempted would likewise have been brought upon the stage, but for two reasons; the one because of men's diffidence in prejudging them as impossibilities; for it holdeth in those things which the poet saith, "possunt quia posse videntur;" for no man shall know how much may be done, except he believe much may be done, The other reason is, because they be but practices, base and inglorious, and of no great use, and therefore sequestered from reward of value; and on the other side, painful; so as the recompense balanceth not with the travel and suffering. And as to the will of man, it is that which is most maniable and obedient; as that which admitteth most medicines to cure and alter it. The most sovereign of all is religion, which is able to change and transform it in the deepest and most inward inclinations and motions: and next to that is opinion and apprehension; whether it be infused by tradition and institution, or wrought in by disputation and persuasion; and the third is example, which transformeth the will of man into the similitude of that which is most observant and familiar towards it; and the fourth is, when one affection is healed and corrected by another; as when cowardice is remedied by shame and dishonour, or sluggishness and backwardness by indignation and emulation; and so of the like; and lastly, when all these means, or any of them, have new framed or formed human will, then doth custom and habit corroborate and confirm all the rest; therefore it is no marvel, though this faculty of the mind (of will and election) which inclineth affection and appetite, being butthe inceptions and rudiments of will, may be so well governed and managed, because it admitteth access to so divers remedies to be applied to it and to work upon it, the effects whereof are so many and so known as require no enumeration; but generally they do issue as medicines do, into two kinds of cures, whereof the one is a just or true cure, and the other is called palliation; for either the labour and intention is to reform the affections really and truly, restraining them if they be too violent, and raising them if they be too soft and weak, or else it is to cover them; or if occasion be, to pretend them and represent them: of the former sort whereof the examples are plentiful in the schools of philosophers, and in all other institutions of moral virtue; and of the other sort, the examples are more plentiful in the courts of princes, and in all politic traffic, where it is ordinary to find not only profound dissimulations and suffocating the affections, that no note or mark appear of them outwardly, but also lively simulations and affectations, carrying the tokens of passions which are not, as "risu jussus," and "lachrymæ coactæ," and the like.