Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/372

 And for the Government of the church, it consisteth of the patrimony of the church, the franchises of the church, and the offices and jurisdictions of the church, and the laws of the church directing the whole; all which have two considerations, the one in themselves, the other how they stand compatible and agreeable to the civil estate.

This matter of divinity is handled either in form of instruction of truth, or in form of confutation of falsehood. The declinations from religion, besides the privative, which is atheism, and the branches thereof, are three; heresies, idolatry, and witchcraft; heresies, when we serve the true God with a false worship; idolatry, when we worship false gods, supposing them to be true; and witchcraft, when we adore false gods, knowing them to be wicked and false: for so your majesty doth excellently well observe, that witchcraft is the height of idolatry. And yet we see though these be true degrees, Samuel teacheth us that they are all of a nature, when there is once a receding from the word of God; for so he saith, "Quasi peccatum ariolandi est repugnare, et quasi sœlus idololatriæ nolle acquiescere."

These things I have passed over so briefly, because I can report no deficiency concerning them: for I can find no space or ground that lieth vacant and unsown in the matter of divinity; so diligent have men been, either in sowing of good seed, or in sowing of tares.

have I made as it were a small Globe of the Intellectual World, as truly and faithfully as I could discover; with a note and description of those parts which seem to me not constantly occupate, or not well converted by the labour of man. In which, if I have in any point receded from that which is commonly received, it hath been with a purpose of proceeding in melius, and not in aliud; a mind of amendment and proficience, and not of change and difference. For I could not be true and constant to the argument I handle, if I were not willing to go beyond others; but yet not more willing than to have others go beyond me again: which may the better appear by this, that I have propounded my opinions naked and unarmed, not seeking to preoccupate the liberty of men's judgments by confutations. For in any thing which is well set down, I am in good hope, that if the first reading move an objection, the second reading will make an answer. And in those things wherein I have erred, I am sure I have not prejudiced the right by litigious arguments; which certainly have this contrary effect and operation, that they add authority to error, and destroy the authority of that which is well invented: for question is an honour and preferment to falsehood, as on the other side it is a repulse to truth. But the errors I claim and challenge to myself as mine own: the good, if any be, is due "tanquam adeps sacrificii," to be incensed to the honour, first of the Divine Majesty, and next of your majesty, to whom on earth I am most bounden.

NOTES TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.

Referring to page 138. the miseries attendant upon this doctrine of stooping to occasions, Bacon was, perhaps, a sad instance. It may be true, to use the words of old Fuller. "To blame are they whose minds may seem to be made of one entire bone without any joints; they cannot bend at all, but stand as stiffly in things of pure indifferency, as in matters of absolute necessity:" but how distant is this inflexibility in trifles, from the stooping to occasions recommended by Bacon.—(See page 169.)

How unlike to Solon! who, when Æsop said to him, "O Solon! either we must not come to princes, or else we must seek to please and content them," answered, "Either we must not come to princes at all, or else we must needs tell them truly and counsel them for the best."—How unlike to Seneca speaking to Nero! "Suffer me to stay here a little longer with thee, not to flatter thine ear, for this is not my custom; I had rather offend thee by truth, than please thee by flattery." There is in this part of the work, (see page 169,) an observation upon dedications, which, except by this doctrine of the necessity of stooping to occasions, it seems difficult to reconcile with Bacon's dedication to the king. Some allowance may, possibly be made for the exuberance of expression with which dedications at that time abounded, and, secundum majus et minus, will at all times abound: epistles dedicatory and epitaphs, being, it is said, the proper places for panegyric.—See as specimens, Dryden's dedications to the Earl of Abingdon and to the Duke of Ormond. See Locke's dedication to Lord Pembroke of his Essay on the Human Understanding, in which there are some passages in the same style of adulation. See also Addison's dedication to the Earl of Wharton, in Spectator, vol. v. To Mr. Metheuen, vol. vii., and to Lord Somers, vol. i. See also Middleton's dedication of his Life of Cicero to Lord Hervey, in which he, as usual, ascribing every virtue to his patron, says, "I could wish to see the dedicatory style reduced to that classical simplicity, with which the ancient writers used to present their books to their friends or patrons." Some allowance too may be made for the style in which princes have, at all times, been addressed, and particularly in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, when Sir Nicholas Bacon, after the queen's departure from Gorhambury, caused the door to be closed that no other step might pass the same threshold; and when a dedication to the king in the style of the dedication of the Spanish Grammar of the Academy, "La Academia Castellana," which begins simply Senor, and ends only Senor, would have partaken almost of the nature of treason. Some allowance may be made for Bacon's anxiety that his work should be protected by the king, from a supposition that this