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What Bacon condemns as a false method of reasoning Shake-speare faithfully illustrates.

882

PROPHESYING THE FUTURE FROM THE PAST

From Shake-speare

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From Bacon

"Whereas this is added in the fable, that Proteus was a prophet and knew the three times [past, present, and future]; this agrees well with the nature of matter; for if a man knew the conditions, affections, and processes of matter, he would certainly comprehend the sum and general issue (for I do not say that his knowledge would extend to the parts and singularities) of all things, past, present, and to come." - Wisdom of the Ancients (1609).

That is to say,

The difference between these two passages lies wholly in the application; the thought is the same. full knowledge of all the antecedents of the present state of things, whether in nature (as Bacon says) or in human life (as Shake-speare says), would enable a man to predict the future.

It is noticeable also that the same slight limitation of this prophetic power is given in both:

"A man [thus equipped] may prophesy of the main chance of things with a near aim."-SHAKE-SPEARE.

"I do not say that his knowledge would extend to the parts and singularities."- BACON.

883

MELTING OF THE BODY AT DEATH

"O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt,

"Melting of the body is the work of the vital spirits alone, when they are excited by heat; for then, though under confineHamlet, i. 2 (1603). ment, they necessarily expand and

Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew."

"Have I not hideous death within

my view,

Retaining but a quantity of life.
Which bleeds away, even as a form

of wax
Resolveth from its figure 'gainst
the fire?"

King John, v. 4 (1623).

make the grosser parts, the flesh soft and fusible, as in the case of metals and wax."— History of Life and Death (1623).

Bacon believed that all vital spirit is compounded of flame and air. "Flame," he said, "is a momentary, air a permanent, substance; the living spirits of animals are of a middle nature between them." He therefore took the ground that continuity of life depends upon the proper equilibrium existing between these two substances in the spirit; and that if from any cause the inflammatory element should become excessive, then the body would melt and death ensue. Not only is this singular conception common to both authors, but also the same simile, derived from the nature of wax, to illustrate it.

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Of all the sentiments of the human heart, one of the most highly valued is hope. It has almost always been regarded as a blessing. Shelley says that "Hope and Youth are the children of one mother, Love;" Whittier, that it is "God's special gift to all;" Keats, that it is of "celestial sweetness;' and Sam Johnson, that "where there is no hope, there can be no endeavor." What more terrible inscription could have

1 That is, be certain; a Latinism.

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been placed over the door of the infernal regions than that which Dante reports:

"All hope abandon, ye who enter here."

Singularly enough, however, Francis Bacon, during the greater part of his life and to within a short time of his death, condemned the sentiment of hope. He sought for himself and for mankind absolute veracity, or freedom from every kind of delusion. He said:

"In hope there seems to be no use. For what avails the anticipation of good? If the good turn out less than you hoped for, good though it be, yet because it is not so good, it seems to you more like a loss than a gain, by reason of the over-hope. If the event be equal to the hope, then the flower of it, having been by that hope already gathered, you find it stale and almost distasteful. If the good be beyond the hope, then no doubt there is a sense of gain; but had it not been better to gain the whole by hoping not at all than the difference by hoping too little? And such is the effect of hope in prosperity. But in adversity it enervates the true strength of the mind. For matter of hope cannot always be forthcoming; and if it fail, though but for a moment, the whole strength and support of the mind goes with it. Moreover the mind suffers in dignity, when we endure evil only by self-deception and looking another way, and not by fortitude and judgment. And therefore it was an idle fiction of the poets to make Hope the antidote of human diseases, because it mitigates the pain of them; whereas it is in fact an inflammation and exasperation of them rather, multiplying and making them break out afresh." Meditationes Sacræ (1597).

The same peculiar and exceptional repugnance to hope is several times expressed in Shake-speare. In 'Measure for Measure,' for example, the Duke enjoins Claudio, who lies in prison under prospect of immediate death, "Be absolute for death," that is, be certain of death, entertain no hope; for then

"either death or life

Shall thereby be the sweeter."

To show at a glance the great variety and scope of the
foregoing parallelisms, as well as for ease of reference, we
now recapitulate them by their headings:

INDEX OF PARALLELISMS

[Numerals denote number of parallelism.]

Abstemiousness, 597.
Accents of Words, 561.
Accidents of Life, 580.
Accusation, Silence under, 126.
Actæon and his Hounds, 700.
Actæon turned into a Stag, 538.
Action and Imagination, 508.
Action is Eloquence, 452.
Actium, Battle of, 620.

Actor forgetting his Part, 224.

Acts not to be judged by Effects,

249.

Adam, Penalty of, 353.
Adamant, 322.

Address in Court, 154.
Adonis' Gardens, 480.
Advantage of Time, 334.
Eolus, Kingdom of, 628.
Etna burning, 679.

Affection and Reason, 449.

Africa breeding Monsters, 723.
Age and Youth, 380.
Age, deforming Mind, 129.

Age, old, Bodies wrinkled in, 111.
Age, old, Premature, 496.

Agents, Repudiation of, by Princes,

123.

Aims in Life, 606.
Air for Homes, 473.
Air in the Earth, 629.

Air poisoned by foul Breaths, 445.
All's well that ends well, 834.
Altars, no Consultation before, 806.
Anathema from Christ, 351.
Anaxarchus, 12.

Ands and Ifs, 301.

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Applause of Rabble, 567.

Archery, 660.

Archery, White in, 669.

Ariadne and Theseus, 702.
Ariel, a Spirit, 456.

Arion among Dolphins, 231.
Aristotle, Misquotation from, 69.
Arm-pits, under the, 844.
Arms of Kings long, 343.
Army commanded from a Litter,
582.

Arrows, Parthian, 290.

Art and Nature, Relations between,
342.

Art progressive, 469.

Art, subject to Nature, 294.

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