Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/353

 and policy; onsidering it is of so great ministry and suppeditation to them both. A man shall find in the traditions of astrology some pretty and apt divisions of men's natures, according to the predominances of the planets; lovers of quiet, lovers of action, lovers of victory, lovers of honour, lovers of pleasure, lovers of arts, lovers of change, and so forth. A man shall find in the wisest sort of these relations which the Italians make touching conclaves, the natures of the several cardinals handsomely and livelily painted forth: a man shall meet with, in every day's conference, the denominations of sensitive, dry, formal, real, humorous, certain, "huomo di prima impressione, huomo di ultima impressione," and the like: and yet nevertheless this kind of observations wandereth in words, but is not fixed in inquiry. For the distinctions are found, many of them, but we conclude no precepts upon them: wherein our fault is the greater: because both history, poesy, and daily experience are as goodly fields where these observations grow; whereof we make a few posies to hold in our hands, but no man bringeth them to the confectionary, that receipts might be made of them for the use of life.

Of much like kind are those impressions of nature, which are imposed upon the mind by the sex, by the age, by the region, by health and sickness, by beauty and deformity, and the like, which are inherent and not external; and again, those which are caused by external fortune; as sovereignty, nobility, obscure birth, riches, want, magistracy, privateness, prosperity, adversity, constant fortune, variable fortune, rising "per saltum," "per gradus," and the like. And therefore we see that Plautus maketh it a wonder to see an old man beneficent, "benignitas hujus ut adolescentuli est." St. Paul concludeth, that severity of discipline was to be used to the Cretans, "Increpa eos durè," upon the disposition of their country, "Cretenses semper mendaces, malæ bestiæ, venires pigri." Sallust noteth, that it is usual with kings to desire contradictories: "Sed plerumque regiæ voluntates, ut vehementes sunt, sic mobiles, sæpeque ipsæ sibi adversæ." Tacitus observeth how rarely raising of the fortune mendeth the disposition: "Solus Vespasianus mutatus in melius." Pindarus maketh an observation, that great and sudden fortune for the most part defeateth men, "Qui magnam felicitatem concoquere non possunt." So the Psalm showeth it is more easy to keep a measure in the enjoying of fortune, than in the increase of fortune: "Divitiæ si affluant, nolite cor apponere." These observations, and the like, I deny not but are touched a little by Aristotle, as in passage, in his Rhetorics, and are handled in some scattered discourses: but they were never incorporated into moral philosophy, to which they do essentially appertain; as the knowledge of the diversity of grounds and moulds doth to agriculture, and the knowledge of the diversity of complexion-, and constitutions doth to the physician; except we mean to follow the indiscretion of empirics, which minister the same medicine to all patients.

Another article of this knowledge is the inquiry touching the affections; for as in medicining of the body, it is in order first to know the divers complexions and constitutions; secondly, the diseases; and lastly, the cures: so in medicining of the mind, after knowledge of the divers characters of men's natures, it followeth, in order, to know the diseases and infirmities of the mind, which are no other than the perturbations and distempers of the affections. For as the ancient politicians in popular states were won to compare the people to the sea, and the orators to the winds; because as the sea would of itself be canlm and quiet, if the winds did not move and trouble it; so the people would be peaceable and tractable, if the seditious orators did not set them in working and agitation: so it may be fitly said, that the mind in the nature thereof would be temperate and stayed, if the affections, as winds, did not put it into tumult and perturbation. And here again I find strange, as before, that Aristotle should have written divers volumes of Ethics, and never handled the affections, which is the principal subject thereof; and yet, in his Rhetorics, where they are considered but collaterally, and in a second degree, as they may be moved by speech, he findeth place for them, and handleth them well for the quantity; but where their true place is, he pretermitteth them. For it is not his disputations about pleasure and pain that can satisfy this inquiry, no more than he that should generally handle the nature of light, can be said to handle the nature of colours; for pleasure and pain are to the particular affections as light is to particular colours. Better travails, I suppose, had the Stoics taken in this argument, as far as I can gather by that which we have at second hand. But yet, it is like, it was after their manner rather in subtilty of definitions, (which in a subject of this nature are but curiosities,) than in active and ample descriptions and observations. So likewise I find some particular writings of an elegant nature, touching some of the affections; as of anger, of comfort upon adverse accidents, of tenderness of countenance, and other.

But the poets and writers of histories are the best doctors of this knowledge: where we may find painted forth with great life, how affections are kindled and incited; and how pacified and refrained; and how again contained from act and further degree; how they disclose themselves; how they work; how they vary; how they gather and fortify; how they are inwrapped one within another; and how they do fight and encounter one with another; and other the like particularities: amongst the which this last is of special use in