this same untwining of "Parca's fatal web." Toss is a
favorite word with Bacon and Shakespeare, and it is used
by Plato in the same way.
"And I often tossed myself
upwards and downwards," says Plato; "the word, the
bread of life, they toss up and down," says Bacon. Plato's
"prop of a state," appears oftentimes in Bacon, and fre-
quently again in the plays. Top, as "tops of judgment,"
66 tops of mountains," is a favorite metaphor in both writ-
ings; and Bacon quotes Pindar's "tops of all virtues.”
The simile of the mirror or glass, several times occurring
in Plato, is a favorite one with Bacon, and it is often re-
peated in the plays. Plato speaks of "seeing nothing with
the mind's eye"; Bacon, of "fixing the mind's eye stead-
ily"; and Hamlet answers:
"In my
mind's eye, Horatio."
In Plato's "Laws," we find this expression, "while beget-
ting and rearing children, and handing in succession from
some to others life, like a torch, and ever paying, accord-
ing to law, worship to the gods"; to which Bacon probably
alludes, when he calls his method of delivery to posterity
"the Handing on of the Lamp." So, in the "Measure for
Measure," it is said:

"Heaven doth with us, as we with torches do,
Not light them for ourselves."

In the "Cratylus" of Plato, there is an allusion to the Æsopo-Socratic fable of the ass in the lion's skin, thus:"But, however, since I have put on the lion's skin, I must not act the coward"; and the same reappears in the "King John," thus:

"Const. Thou wear a lion's hide! doff it for shame, And hang a calf-skin on those recreant limbs."

In the "Banquet" of Plato, we have this passage:"Thus, Phædrus, Love appears to me to be, in the first place, himself the most beautiful and the best, in the next, to be the cause of such like beautiful things in other beings"; Bacon says of the tuning of instruments, that it is

not pleasant to hear, "but yet is a cause why the music is sweeter afterwards"; and so, Falstaff: "I am not only witty in myself, but a cause that wit is in other men."

Not much can be safely founded on resemblances of this kind, standing alone; but even straws may show which way the wind blows; and when these authors are read together and compared, in respect of their whole thought and manner, remembering that Bacon derived not a little of his deeper philosophy from the study of Plato, even these and the like similitudes may be admitted to have some significance. But he was himself one of those imperial thinkers that recognize no master but one; for he was accustomed, not merely "now and then to draw a bucket of water" out of "a deep well," as some others had done, but habitually to visit "the spring-head thereof."

§ 3. UNIVERSALS.

There are many passages in the writings of Bacon, which indicate that his opinion was, that the primal cause or essence itself gives the form of things; and this can scarcely be conceived otherwise than as the essential power of thought, in creation, giving both the substance and the form to particular things, the active power being the only substance or matter, and being of itself by its own nature self-acting and self-directing cause: wherefore it had been laid down, that the first essence, or Cupid, was without parents. He then proceeds to the discussion of the "mode of this thing which is uncaused"; for, as he says in the Advancement, one must seek the dignity of knowledge in the archetype, or first platform, which is in the attributes and acts of God, as far as they are revealed to man, and may be observed with sobriety,

66

not

by the name of learning, but by that of wisdom or sapience, . . . . . for in God all knowledge is original." Lear, in his madness, supposed his philosopher, Edgar, to possess something of this sapience:

"Lear.

I will arraign them straight.

Come, sit thou here, most learned justicer; -
Thou sapient sir, sit here." -Act III. Sc. 6.

[To EDGAR.

It was likewise very obscure. Not so much with any idea of making the matter more clear, as for the better understanding, if possible, of the general scope and result to which his views and doctrines tended, let us suppose him to have expounded, in more modern phrase and in some what fuller outline, the following

APHORISMS OF UNIVERSALS.

1. God is to be conceived as an eternally continuing Power of Thought, and, as such, the only essence, substance, or matter, the last power and cause of all Nature, a Divine Artist-Mind, eternally thinking, that is, creating, a Universe; being, in fact, no other than "the order, operation, and Mind of Nature." 1

2. The existence of such Power of Thought, in an eternal state of living activity, as self-acting and self-directing cause, is an ultimate and final fact, beyond which, to inquire after, or to attempt to imagine, a further cause, or a more ultimate fact, would be contradictory to the laws of all thinking, and to the fact itself, which stands forth selfevident to the mental vision, whenever it is looked for, comprehended, and seen, by the true Interpreter of Nature having eyes to see; and therefore, any attempt at such further inquiry would be in itself absurd, as it would be an inquiry after a non-existent fact, and an inconceivable thing.2

3. The Infinity of God consists in the exhaustless possibility of his continuous existence as such Power of Thought.

4. The Eternity of God consists in his ever-continuous activity as such existent Power of Thought, in thinking, conceiving, remembering, and forgetting (voluntarily ceas1 Nov. Org., Introd. 2 Nov. Org. I. § 48.

ing to remember); that is, in creating, upholding, and destroying, and continuing to uphold and create, a universe in Time and Space.

5. His Omnipotence consists in the unlimited possibility of his own continuous existence as a Power of Thought in such continuous activity, and not in any power to transcend, or contradict, the nature of his own being as such existent actuality, or the necessary laws of all thought, under which alone existence and thinking, that is God and creation, are at all possible; nor in his limited power, in accordance with the nature of his being and under the necessary laws of thought, so to create, uphold, and destroy, and continue to uphold and create, a universe in Time and Space.

6. His Omniscience consists in his knowing his own existence, nature, power, necessary laws, and possibilities, — his self-consciousness, and the whole present state of his thought, existing in that consciousness as the present existent universe in Time and Space.

7. With God, to thìnk and know is to create; and his thought is reality; and therefore, any foreknowlege of what is yet unthought and uncreated, or any foreordained. plan of the creation, beyond this extent of his omniscience, is an inconceivable thing, an impossibility, and an absurdity.

8. The Providential order and plan in the creation, so far as it has existed, now exists, or ever may exist, or can be conceived to exist, consists, and must consist, in the existence, nature, power, laws, and possibilities of God, together with the actual order and plan of the present existent created universe in time and space, so far only; and hence the only possible foreground for us of what the certain, the possible, and the probable continuation thereof will be, in any future or other Time and Space.

9. What the plan will actually be, in the future continuity of time, in respect of the particular details and total order thereof, is impossible to be foreknown, or to be conceived by man to be foreknown, to God himself; for, with

him, to conceive and know it, would be, to bring it into present actual existence as a part of the existent universe of fact and reality.

10. The Freedom of God consists in the dependence of the existent created and remembered universe, and of any future universe, for what it shall be, in time and space, in the particular details and total plan thereof, upon his Free Will, which is Liberty.

11. With God, in the continuity of his thought, is the continuity of Time and Space, that is of ideas; and as the whole present state of his thought is, in each successive instant, present to his consciousness, being held, and, as it were, carried forward in his remembrance so far as it is remembered, and so sustained in the continuity of time: therefore, with him, it is an everlasting Now and Here, bounded only by the eternal possibilities of his thinking existence; that is, of creating, remembering, and forgetting (ceasing to remember).

12. The Perfection of God consists in his absolute wisdom, justice, goodness, and love, and in the beauty of his nature and being, as such existent Power of Thought, and not in any perfection of the created universe merely, wherein there can be no more perfection, goodness, and beauty possible in the particulars than as much as may consist with the total order and plan of the whole given creation, as a universe of variety in unity; nor more in the total plan thereof than what may possibly consist with the existence, nature, power, laws, and possibilities of God himself.

13. The Immortality of any finite soul, or the endless continuity of its existence in future time and space (for in time and space only can a created soul possibly exist), is a possibility, and a probability, only, depending for the fact, like the rest of any future universe, on the divine nature and free-will in the future order of his providence.

14. Therefore, the Immortality of any given soul can