FRANCIS BACON. 1561 – 1626. WORKS (ED. SPEDDING AND ELLIS). Come home to men's business and bosoms. Dedication to the Essays. Ed. 1625. No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth. Essay i. Of Truth. Virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed.1 Essay v. Of Adversity. He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Essay viii. Of Marriage and Single Life. A little philosophy inclineth a man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.2 Essay xvi. Atheism. 1 As aromatic plants bestow No spicy fragrance while they grow; Goldsmith, The Captivity, Act i. The good are better made by ill, As odours crushed are sweeter still. Rogers, Jacqueline, St. 3. 2 Who are a little wise the best fools be. Donne, The Triple Fool. A little skill in antiquity inclines a man to Popery; but depth in that study brings him about again to our Princes are like to heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times, and which have much veneration, but no rest.1 Essay xix. Empire. God Almighty first planted a garden.2 Essay xlvi. Of Gardens. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. Essay 1. Of Studies. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. Ibid. Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtile; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend. Ibid. I hold every man a debtor to his profession; from the which as men of course do seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavour themselves by way of amends to be a help and ornament thereunto. Maxims of the Law. Preface. religion. Fuller, The Holy State. The True Church Antiquary. A little learning is a dangerous thing. Pope, Essay on Criticism, Part ii. Line 15. 1 Kings are like stars—they rise and set — they have The worship of the world, but no repose. Shelley, Hellas. 2 God the first garden made, and the first city Cain. Cowley, The Garden, Essay v. God made the country, and man made the town. Cowper, The Task, Book i. Line 749. Divina natura dedit agros, ars humana ædificavit urbes. Varro, De res rustica, iii. 1. Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books. Knowledge is power. - Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est Meditationes Sacra. De Hæresibus. Whence we see spiders, flies, or ants entombed and preserved for ever in amber, a more than royal tomb.2 Historia Vita et Mortis; Sylva Sylvarum, Cent. i. Exper. 100. When you wander, as you often delight to do, you wander indeed, and give never such satisfaction as the curious time requires. This is not caused by any natural defect, but first for want of election, when you, having a large and fruitful mind, should not so much labour what to speak, as to find what to leave unspoken. Rich soils are often to be weeded. Letter of Expostulation to Coke. 1 A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength. Prov. xxiv. 5. 2 The bee enclos'd and through the amber shown, Martial, Book iv. 31. Hay's Translation. Of amber cleanly buried. Herrick, On a Fly buried in Amber. Pretty in amber to observe the forms Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! Pope, Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, Line 169. My Lord St. Albans said that nature did never put her precious jewels into a garret four stories high, and therefore that exceeding tall men had ever very empty heads.1 Apothegm, No. 17. "Antiquitas sæculi juventus mundi." These times are the ancient times, when the world is ancient, and not those which we account ancient ordine retrogrado, by a computation backward from ourselves.2 Advancement of Learning. Book i. (1605.) 1 Often the cockloft is empty, in those whom Nature hath built many stories high. Fuller, Andronicus, ad fin. 1. 2 As in the little, so in the great world, reason will tell you that old age or antiquity is to be accounted by the farther distance from the beginning and the nearer approach to the end. The times wherein we now live being in propriety of speech the most ancient since the world's creation. -George Hakewill, An Apologie or Declaration of the Power and Providence of God in the Govern ment of the World. London, 1627. For as old age is that period of life most remote from infancy, who does not see that old age in this universal man ought not to be sought in the times nearest his birth, but in those most remote from it? - Pascal, Preface to the Treatise on Vacuum. It is worthy of remark that a thought which is often quoted from Francis Bacon occurs in [Giordano] Bruno's Cena di Cenere, published in 1584; I mean the notion that the later times are more aged than the earlier. — Whewell, Philos. of the Inductive Sciences, Vol. ii. p. 198, London, 1847. We are Ancients of the earth, And in the morning of the times. Tennyson, The Day Dream. (L'Envoi.) For the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate. Advancement of Learning. Book i. The sun, which passeth through pollutions and itself remains as pure as before.1 Ibid. Book ii. It [Poesy] was ever thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shews of things to the desires of the mind. Ibid. Book 2. Sacred and inspired divinity, the sabaoth and port of all men's labours and peregrinations. Ibid. Book ii. Cleanness of body was ever esteemed to proceed from a due reverence to God. Ibid. Book ii. 1 The sun, though it passes through dirty places, yet remains as pure as before.-Adv. of Learning, ed. Dewey. The sun, too, shines into cess-pools and is not polluted. Diogenes Laertius, Lib. vi. § 63. Spiritalis enim virtus sacramenti ita est ut lux: etsi per immundos transeat, non inquinatur. St. Augustine, Works, Vol. 3, In Johannis Evang. Cap. 1. Tr. v. . $ 15. The sun shineth upon the dunghill, and is not corrupted. Lilly's Euphues, The Anatomy of Wit. Arber's reprint, p. 43. The sun reflecting upon the mud of strands and shores is unpolluted in his beam. - Taylor, Holy Living, Ch. i. Sect. 3. Truth is as impossible to be soiled by any outward touch as the sunbeam. - Milton, The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. |