nour' is the title which Bacon would naturally have given him, and which indeed (as we see by the last letters) he still continued to use occasionally; and it is clear from the foregoing letters that he had been beholden to him for procuring a loan of money. That I was beholden to your Honour for procuring . For my brother. For the rest, Bacon obtained his title, but not in a manner to distinguish him. He was knighted at Whitehall, on the 23rd of July;2 two days before the Coronation; but had to share the honour with 300 others. 3. After this I find no more letters for a good while; nor indeed (until the meeting of Parliament on the 29th of March, 1603-4) any further news of his proceedings. I imagine, however, that the intervening months were among the busiest and most exciting that he ever passed. For this is the time when I suppose him to have conceived the design of throwing his thoughts on philosophy and intellectual progress into a popular form, and inviting the co-operation of mankind. His old idea of finding a better method of studying the laws of Nature, having no doubt undergone in the endeavour to realise it many modifications, had at last taken the shape of a treatise in two parts. The first part was to be called Experientia Literata, and was to contain an exposition of the art of experimenting; that is, of proceeding in scientific order from one experiment to another, making the answer to one question suggest the question to be asked next. The second part was to be called Interpretatio Nature, and was to explain the method of arriving by degrees at axioms, or general prin1 1S. P. O. Domestic, 1603. 2 Nichols's Progresses, i. 208. 1 ciples in nature; thence by the light of those axioms proceeding to new experiments; and so finally to the discovery of all the secrets of nature's operation,-which would include the command over her forces. This great speculation he had now digested in his head into these two parts, and "proposed hereafter to propound." And being a man whose mind found relief in utterance, though it were only to a piece of paper in his cabinet, he drew up (either at, or about, or at any rate with reference to this time) a short prefatory address; which, had the work itself been then completed according to the design, would I suppose have stood as the introduction. As an exposition of the design it was superseded by completer prefaces of later date, and was therefore not included among the philosophical works selected for translation. But as bearing upon the history of his own career it has a peculiar value; revealing as it does an authentic glimpse of that large portion of his life, which though to him as real as the rest and far more profoundly interesting, scarcely shows itself among these records of his career as a man of business, and is in danger of being forgotten. And I do not know how I can better help my readers to conceive the thing and to give it its due prominence among his purposes and performances, than by inserting a translation of it in this place. Of the practicability of the enterprise and the reasonableness of the expectation, I say nothing: that question has been discussed in its proper place, and need not concern us here. What we have to understand and remember is the nature of the enterprise, and the fact that he believed it practicable. He believed that he had by accident stumbled upon a Thought, which duly followed out would in the course of generations make man the master of all natural forces. The "Interpretation of Nature" was, according to his speculation, the "Kingdom of Man."2 To plant this thought in men's minds under such conditions that it should have the best chance of growing and bearing its proper fruit in due season, was the great aspiration of his life; and though diverted, interrupted, and baffled by a hundred impediments, internal and external,-by infirmities of body and of mind, by his own business and other people's, by clients, creditors, and sheriff's officers, by the impracticability (say the wise) of the problem itself, owing to a fundamental misconception of the case, by an imperfection (as I think) in his own intellectual organisation, which placed him at a disadvantage in dealing with many parts of it, he never : 1 Adv. of Learn.: Works, Vol. III. p. 389. De Augmentis Scientiarum lib. v. c. 2. Vol. I. pp. 622-633. 2 Indicia vera de Interpretatione Naturæ, sive de Regno Hominis. Title of the Novum Organum. doubted that the thing might be done if men would but think so, and that it was his mission to make them think so and point out the way. And though many and many a day must have closed without shewing any sensible progress in the work, I suppose not a single day went down in which he did not remember with a sigh, or a resolution, or a prayer, that the work was still undone. On one of these days, his imagination, wandering far into the future, showed him in vision the first instalment ready for publication, and set him upon thinking how he should announce it to the world. The result of this meditation he fortunately confided to a sheet of paper, which being found long after in his cabinet, revealed the secret which it had kept. The original, written in stately Latin, may be seen in the third volume of the Philosophical Works, p. 518, accompanied with a long preface of my own, to which I refer those who care to know what else I had to say about it. For our present purpose, the following translation, though in spirit and effect a poor copy, may serve sufficiently well. OF THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. Proem. Believing that I was born for the service of mankind, and regarding the care of the commonwealth as a kind of common property which like the air and the water belongs to everybody, I set myself to consider in what way mankind might be best served, and what service I was myself best fitted by nature to perform. Now among all the benefits that could be conferred upon mankind, I found none so great as the discovery of new arts, endowments, and commodities for the bettering of man's life. For I saw that among the rude people in the primitive times the authors of rude inventions and discoveries were consecrated and numbered among the Gods. And it was plain that the good effects wrought by founders of cities, law-givers, fathers of the people, extirpers of tyrants, and heroes of that class, extend but over narrow spaces and last but for short times; whereas the work of the Inventor, though a thing of less pomp and shew, is felt everywhere and lasts for ever. But above all, if a man could succeed, not in striking out some particular invention, however useful, but in kindling a light in nature-a light which should in its very rising touch and illuminate all the border-regions that confine upon the circle of our present knowledge; and so spreading further and further should presently disclose and bring into sight all that is most hidden and secret in the world, -that man (I thought) would be the benefactor indeed of the human race,the propagator of man's empire over the universe, the champion of liberty, the conqueror and subduer of necessities. For myself, I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of Truth; as having a mind nimble and versatile enough to catch the resemblances of things (which is the chief point), and at the same time steady enough to fix and distinguish their subtler differences; as being gifted by nature with desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to reconsider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and as being a man that neither affects what is new nor admires what is old, and that hates every kind of imposture. So I thought my nature had a kind of familiarity and relationship with Truth. Nevertheless, because my birth and education had seasoned me in business of state; and because opinions (so young as I was) would sometimes stagger me; and because I thought that a man's own country has some special claims upon him more than the rest of the world; and because I hoped that, if I rose to any place of honour in the state, I should have a larger command of industry and ability to help me in my work;-for these reasons I both applied myself to acquire the arts of civil life, and commended my service, so far as in modesty and honesty I might, to the favour of such friends as had any influence. In which also I had another motive: for I felt that those things I have spoken of-be they great or small-reach no further than the condition and culture of this mortal life; and I was not without hope (the condition of Religion being at that time not very prosperous) that if I came to hold office in the state, I might get something done too for the good of men's souls. When I found however that my zeal was mistaken for ambition, and my life had already reached the turning-point, and my breaking health reminded me how ill I could afford to be so slow, and I reflected moreover that in leaving undone the good that I could do by myself alone, and applying myself to that which could not be done without the help and consent of others, I was by no means discharging the duty that lay upon me, I put all those thoughts aside, and (in pursuance of my old determination) betook myself wholly to this work. Nor am I discouraged from it because I see signs in the times of the decline and overthrow of that knowledge and erudition which is now in use. Not that I apprehend any more barbarian invasions (unless possibly the Spanish empire should recover its strength, and having crushed other nations by arms should itself sink under its own weight): but the civil wars which may be expected, I think, (judging from certain fashions which have come in of late) to spread through many countries,-together with the malignity of sects, and those compendious artifices and devices which have crept into the place of solid erudition-seem to portend for literature and the sciences a tempest not less fatal, and one against which the Printing-office will be no effectual security. And no doubt but that fair-weather learning which is nursed by leisure, blossoms under reward and praise, which cannot withstand the shock of opinion, and is liable to be abused by tricks and quackery, will sink under such impediments as these. Far otherwise is it with that knowledge, whose dignity is maintained by works of utility and power. For the injuries therefore which should proceed from the times, I am not afraid of them; and for the injuries which proceed from men I am not concerned. For if any one charge me with seeking to be wise overmuch, I answer simply that modesty and civil respect are fit for civil matters; in contemplations nothing is to be respected but Truth. If any one call on me for works, and that presently; I tell him frankly, without any imposture at all, that for me-a man not old, of weak health, my hands full of civil business, entering without guide or light upon an argument of all others the most obscure,-I hold it enough to have constructed the machine, though I may not succeed in setting it on work. Nay with the same candour I profess and declare, that the Interpretation of Nature, rightly conducted, ought in the first steps of the ascent, until a certain stage of Generals be reached, to be kept clear of all application to Works. And this has in fact been the error of all those who have heretofore ventured themselves at all upon the waves of experience that being either too weak of purpose or too eager for display, they have all at the outset sought prematurely for works, as proofs and pledges of their progress, and upon that rock have been wrecked and cast away. If again any one ask me, not indeed for actual works, yet for definite promises and foreeasts of the works that are to be, I would have him know |