66

492

MARRIAGE OF MIND AND PHYSICAL NATURE

Speculation turns not to itself, Till it hath travell'd, and is married

there

Where it may see itself."

"I have established forever a true and lawful marriage between the empirical and the rational faculties, the unkind and ill-starv'd

Troilus and Cressida, iii. 3 (1623). divorce and separation of which

has thrown into confusion all the affairs of the human family.

"The true relation between the nature of things and the nature of the mind is as the strewing and decoration of the bridal chamber of the Mind and the Universe."Preface to Novum Organum (1620).

In the above passage from 'Troilus and Cressida,' Mr. Richard Grant White, following some others, substitutes the word mirror'd for "married," and says that "the emendation needs no defence;" but the late Judge Holmes, having the advantage of a correct point of view, defended the original text as entirely consistent with the profound metaphysical meaning of Bacon's marriage of the mind to external nature. This becomes evident when we consider what follows in the play:

"No man is lord of anything,

Though in and of him there be much consisting,
Till he communicate his parts to others."

Bacon regarded all nature as in a "perpetual flux,” in accordance with the classical derivation of the word natura, meaning the about-to-be. The present, he says in effect, is continually rushing into the past and into forgetfulness. Shake-speare expresses this thought in three different ways: first, in the passage quoted above, where Time is represented as an ungrateful monster, devouring all deeds as they come to him; secondly, in the following lines,

"... to have done is to hang

Quite out of fashion, like a rusty nail

In monumental mockery,"

showing that deeds past are not only obliterated, but also useless; thirdly, to illustrate how soon even good deeds are forgotten,

"Time is like a fashionable host

That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand,
And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly,
Grasps in the comer."

Judge Holmes comments eloquently:

"This marriage of mind to the universe, this deep river of Lethe, running as well above ground as below, this perpetual flux of remembrance and oblivion, in which all that appears is like the

foam on the roaring waterfall, every instant born, and every instant dead, living only in the flow, these subtle riddles running underneath the two writings,- will marry to nothing but the truth of Nature, or to the prose and verse of Francis Bacon." — Authorship of Shake-speare, 464.

MOON'S INFLUENCE ON VEGETATION
plantage to the

"As true as.
moon."
Troilus and Cressida, iii. 2 (1623).

496

"The opinion received is that seeds will grow soonest. . . in the increase of the moon."-- Natural History (1622-25).

"We see that in planting and sowing and grafting, observation of the age of the moon is a thing not altogether frivolous." - De Augmentis (1622).

In me thou see'st the twilight of by health, not by age."- Letter to

such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth

take away,

Cecil (1599).

The sonnets, confessing to the writer's premature old age, were written several years before they were published, at or about the time when Bacon's letters, above quoted from, were also written.

Bacon, following the myth, says that Proserpina was carried off in a chariot and became Queen of Dis. Shake-speare adds the pretty conceit that among the flowers which Perdita delivers to her friends in the play are some that Proserpina in her fright dropped from Dis' chariot at the time of her capture.

"Iago.

498

GREATER KNOWLEDGE, THE CURE OF SUSPICION
From Shake-speare

Trifles, light as air,

From Bacon

"There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little; and therefore men should remedy suspicion by proceeding to know more." - Essay of Suspicion

WORLD FORMED FROM ATOMS OF SEEDS

"There is a history in all men's lives,

Figuring the nature of the times deceas'd,

The which observ'd, a man may

prophesy,

"When Democritus had set down matter, or seeds, as infinite in quantity and finite in attributes and power, he was driven by the very force of this opinion to constitute multiform worlds."-De

With a near aim, of the main scriptio Globi Intellectualis (1612).

chance of things,

As yet not come to life, which in their seeds

And weak beginnings, lie intreasur'd;

"The natural motion of the atom is the original and unique force that constitutes and fashions all things out of matter."-De Sapientia Veterum (1609).