VIII FRANCIS BACON, VISCOUNT ST. ALBANS, BARON VERULAM OF VERULAM IN sketching the life and character of a man, especially if he has been fortunate enough to be both praised and blamed, one cannot be too vigilant in avoiding bias, an infection from which biographers rarely escape. Several biographies and sketches, more or less complete, of the life of Francis Bacon, have been written: the first by Rawley, his private chaplain; then, by Böener, his physician; Campbell, Montagu, Fowler, Abbott, Garnett, and notably by Spedding, who has also given us many of his letters. The best test of a man's character and worth should be found in the testimony of contemporaries, and of these we have a cloud of unimpeachable witnesses to Francis Bacon's transcendent genius, righteousness, and altruism, — Rawley, Böener, Matthew, Fuller, Aubrey, and many others, — Aubrey making the sweeping declaration that "All who were good and great loved him." Some modern writers, however, have seen in him nothing, and others everything, to commend. To understand this we must recognize the fact that the human mind, with rare exceptions, is subconsciously or by transmission from some other mind that has adventured into the same field which it is exploring, sensitively alive to suggestion which is readily transformed into theory unless restrained. Such a mind when it undertakes to delineate a dead man's character, with little beside his correspondence with various people, with some of whom he can be familiar, while with others he must be reserved or evasive, complaisant or aggressive, is sure to produce a portrait which would be unrecognizable to a contemporary. Especially is this true if his subject has figured in the political life of his time, no matter how righteous he may have been; indeed, the righteous often furnish a better target to the defamer than the unrighteous. A fair example of this is furnished by two among Bacon's biographers, one of whom, Dixon,' has grossly overpraised, and the other, an anonymous but able writer, has as grossly abused, him.2 3 Two German writers have especially made Bacon the subject of animadversion, Liebig and Dühring. Says Fowler of the former, "Baron Liebig, whose diatribe affords an example of literary animosity which is fortunately rare in recent times, condemns almost all his logical precepts as antiquated or worthless." These writers have largely influenced German opinion upon the subject, and added a keener edge to German contempt of English thought. Yet may we not ask how far they have advanced in the field of metaphysical knowledge; how much more have they achieved than the creation of an ingenious scheme of terminology; and if egoism is the fruit of their claim to superiority, is the world a gainer by their efforts? While Bacon's system may be justly open to criticism as imperfect, as all systems are, it has certainly the merit of being Christian. We are aware that it has been denominated Machiavellian, and will quote his own words in disproof: Wisdom for a man's self is, in many branches thereof, a depraved thing. It is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house somewhat before it falls. It is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out the badger, who digged and made room for him. Men that are great lovers of themselves waste the public. Divide with reason between self-love and society; and be so true to thyself as thou be not false to others, especially to thy king and country. 1 W. Hepworth Dixon, Personal History of Lord Bacon. London, 1861. Cf. Story of Lord Bacon's Life, ibid., 1862. 2 The Life and Correspondence of Francis Bacon, etc. Anon. London, 1861. Cf. Dühring, Kritische Geschichte, etc. 3 Justus von Liebig. Cf. Ueber Francis Bacon von Verulam, und die Methode der Naturforschung. Translation in Macmillan's Magazine, July, 1883. Thomas Fowler, M.A., F.S.A., Bacon, p. 133. New York, 1881. And this: If a man's mind be truly inflamed with charity, it raises him to greater perfection than all the doctrines of morality can do; which is but a sophist in comparison with the other. Nay, further, as Xenophon truly observed, "that all other affections though they raise the mind, yet they distort and disorder it by their ecstasies and excesses, but only love at the same time exalts and composes it"; so all the other qualities which we admire in man, though they advance nature, are yet subject to excess; whereas charity alone admits of no excess.1 Happily there are Germans appreciative of English genius, and we will quote Gervinus, a better authority than those of whom we have spoken. He says, advising his countrymen to cultivate a more intimate knowledge of the "Shakespeare" Works: A similar benefit would it be to our intellectual life if his famed contemporary, Bacon, were revived in a suitable manner, in order to counterbalance the idealistic philosophy of Germany. For both these, the poet as well as the philosopher, having looked deeply into the history and politics of their people, stand upon the level ground of reality, notwithstanding the high art of the one and the speculative notions of the other. . . Both in philosophy and poetry everything conspired, as it were, throughout this prosperous period, in favour of two great minds, Shakespeare and Bacon; all competitors vanished from their side, and they could give forth laws for art and science which it is incumbent even upon present ages to fulfil. As the revived philosophy, which in the former century in Germany was divided among many, but in England at that time was the possession of a single man, so poetry also found one exclusive heir, compared with whom those later born could claim but little. That Shakespeare's appearance upon a soil so admirably prepared was neither marvellous nor accidental is evidenced even by the corresponding appearance of such a contemporary as Bacon. Scarcely can anything be said of Shakespeare's position generally with regard to mediæval poetry which does not also 1 James Spedding, The Works of Francis Bacon, vol. XII, p. 159. Boston, 1861. Cf. vol. ix, pp. 262-97. |