Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/565

 FABLE OF CUPID. darkness ; and let us see what light the parahle can throw upon it. And here I am aware that opinions of this sort the most incredible have entered men s mind. Certainly was this danger incurred here by the philosophy of Democritus itself upon atoms, which, from its seeming acute- ness and profundity, and for its remoteness from common notions, was childishly entertained by the vulgar, but unsettled, and nearly overthrown by the arguments of other philosophies which came nearer to the vulgar comprehension : and yet he was the admiration of his age, and was styled Pentathlus for his multifarious erudition, and was deemed by universal consent the greatest of natural philosophers, and obtained the name of a wise man. Nor could even the opposition of Aristotle (who, like the Ottomans, could not feel firm upon his throne until he had murdered his brother philosophers; and who was solicitous, as appears from his own words, that posterity should not doubt his dogmas) effect by his violence, nor the majesty of Plato effect by reverence the demo lition of this philosophy of Democritus. But whilst the dicta of Aristotle and Plato were cele brated with applause and professorial ostentation in the schools, the philosophy of Democritus was in great repute amongst the wiser sort, and those who more closely gave themselves to the depths and silence of contemplation. It kept its ground and was approved in the era of Roman letters ; for Cicero everywhere makes mention of him with perfect approbation ; and soon after we read the panegyric of the poet, who appears to echo after the manner of the poets the sentiment of his times, whose wisdom shows that in a land of dnlness and beneath a Bceotian, sky, the greatest and the most illustrious men can spring up. (Juv. Sat. 10, v. 48.) Neither Aristotle, therefore, nor Plato, but Genseric, Attila, and the barbarians were the ruin of this philosophy. For, then, after that human learning had suffered shipwreck, those records of the Aristotelian and Platonic philo sophy, as being lighter and more inflated matter, were preserved and came down to our times, whilst the more solid sank and went into oblivion. I cannot but consider, on the other hand, the philosophy of Democritus worthy of being rescued from neglect, especially since it agrees in most things with the authority of antiquity. In the first ;ilace, then, Cupid is described as a certain person, and to him are attributed infancy, wings, arrows, and other attributes, concerning which we will afterward speak separately. But this we assume in the mean while, that the ancients laid down the primitive matter (such as can be the origin of things) with a form and properties, not abstract, potential, and informal. And cer tainly that matter which is stripped and passive seems altogether an invention of the human mind, and to have sprung thence, for those things are mostly present to the human understanding which it most imbibes, and with which itself is most moved. Hence it is that forms, as they are called, seem to exist more than either matter or action, because the one is hid, the other glides before us; the one is not so strongly impressed, the other constantly inheres. But forms, on the other hand, are deemed evident and lasting, so that the primi tive and common matter seems as it were an accessory, and to be in the place of a support to them; but every sort of action only an emanation from the form, and forms, therefore, to be in every respect worthy of the higher rank. And hence, also, seems to be derived the kingdom of forms and ideas in essences, by the addition of a kind of fantastic matter. Some things moreover have grown out of this superstition ; (from want of judgment having, as might have been expected, followed this error;) abstract ideas and their powers have been introduced with such confidence and authority, that this troop of d reamers 4iad nearly overpowered the more sober class of thinkers. But these follies have for the most part disap peared, although one person in our age, with more daring than advantage, made it his endeavour to raise and prop them up when they were of them selves on the decline. I think, however, that it can to an unprejudiced person be easily shown how, contrary to reason, abstract matter was made into an element. It arose thus ; men supposed that forms endued with action subsisted by them selves, but none thought that matter thus subsisted by itself; not even those who considered it an element ; and it seemed unreasonable and contrary to the nature of an inquiry upon the elements of things to make entities out of mere imaginations. And it is not our object to search how we can most conveniently conceive of the nature of en tities or distinguish them, but what are in truth the first and simplest possible of all entities, from which all others are derived. But the first ones ought no less to possess a real existence than those which flow from it ; rather more. For it has its own peculiar essence, and from it come all the rest. But the assertions that have been made respecting abstract matter are as absurd as it would be to say that the universe and nature were made out of categories and such dialectic notions, as out of elements. For the difference is by no means important between asserting that the world sprang from matter and form and privation, and asserting that it arose out of substance and the contrary qualities. But almost all the ancients, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Anaximenes, Heracli- tus, Democritus, though disagreeing in other respects upon the prime matter, joined in this, that they held an active matter with a form, botli arranging its own form and having within its. If the principle of motion. Nor can any one think otherwise without leaving experience altogether. All these, then, submitted their mind o nature. 2o3