theirs. His in Well and wisely days "her watchSome fuel, either because his own prosperity was involved in ordinate restlessness and greediness for work co-operated with, and stimulated, this over-hopeful disposition. had his mistress Elizabeth called him in old candle" because "he did continually burn." of active thought, or else of action itself, was constantly needed to keep alive the consuming flame of that ever-burning intellect which, whenever it could find no other food, preyed upon itself in inward melancholy. Something therefore he must always be doing; and, if the best was impracticable, then, sooner than do nothing, he could make himself believe that what was practicable was also best. All men have a self-illusive power; but Bacon had it enormously developed. Abundant illustrations of this complacent tendency may be found in extracts from Bacon's letters, quoted in the preceding biography; but most of all in the famous Apology, which, however historically worthless, will always retain a value not only for the biographers of Bacon but for all students of human nature who wish to know the lengths of mis-statement, without absolute untruthfulness, to which a man of strong imagination and of slippery memory may be led, who aims at doing too many things, and is too ready to think well of himself. The sum is, that we accept in great part Bacon's description of his own career, and especially of "that great error that led the rest." He was not by nature the "fittest timber to make a politique of"; but he undertook to become a "politique,” and, having undertaken it, he took Machiavelli's advice-so far as concerns the lesser arts of self-advancement-and "hardened himself in order to subsist." But, although he did this systematically and unblushingly, he never altogether forgot that his real calling was to further the Kingdom of Man over Nature, and that to this object all the fruits of his civil successes must be devoted. Supported by this never-failing consciousness, in the midst of all his schemes for self-advancement, he could never feel like a commonplace self-seeker. When he seeks wealth and stoops to take doubtful gifts, he never becomes sordid or avaricious; even when he perverts the truth or recommends falsehood to the King we gaze on him as a portent, with sorrow 1 See above, p. 152. : rather than with pity or unmixed contempt. Something of the support that Religion gives to its votaries was afforded to Bacon by Philosophy and just as a Jesuit's simulation may be more mischievous, but must be always less vulgar than that of a selfish man of the world, so it was with the petty immoralities of the Founder of the New Philosophy. Even while creeping in the service of the great Cause, he did not feel himself to be "mean" at all, much less "the meanest of mankind"; nor did his contemporaries feel him to be so; nor can we; and yet, on sufficient occasion, he could creep like a very serpent. With all his faults, he is one who, the more he is studied, bewitches us into a reluctance to part from him as from an enemy. He has "related to paper" many of his worst defects; but neither his formal works nor his most private letters convey more than a fraction of the singular charm with which his suavity of manner and gracious dignity fascinated his contemporaries, and riveted the affections of some whom it must have been hardest to deceive. It would seem that whenever he found men naturally and willingly depending on him and co-operating with him-so that there was no need to scheme about them, and humour them, and flatter them-his natural and general benevolence found full play; and where he esteemed them so far as to make them partners in his philosophic aspirations and labours, something perhaps of his passionate enthusiasm for Truth in Nature ennobled his intercourse with them, and placed him on a footing of such cordial fellowship with his brother-workers that he really loved them. At least it is certain that he made them love him. In part, perhaps, the adversities and humiliations of that "long cleansing week of five years' expiation" may have chastened his moral character and generated in him an increased affection for those few friends who remained faithful to the last, even when their interests were no longer "included in his." During those five years he devoted himself (at one time under a vow, literally observed) to the prosecution of his scientific labours; and in these he persevered, in spite of all distractions and discouragements, until the end came. The men who were intimate with him during this student-period, may well have seen cause (like Boëner) to admire his patience, and to find in him an illustration of the saying in one of his own writings, "Virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when incensed or crushed." And from this point of view, his best friends may see no reason to deplore the circumstances of his end. Fallen from his high place, with shattered fortunes, cast out from his father's house, he died under the roof of a stranger, cutting short his life in a petty experiment which any scullion could have performed for him. But if he had prolonged his Chancellorship for thirty years of wealth and official splendour, it would have been but to "misspend" still further his time and talents in "things for which he was least fit": and surely to die thus homeless in the independent and honest performance of even the humblest research in the cause of Truth, was better than to lie in state in York House, struck down in the climax of his greatness and complacency, while "applying himself to tasks" that depended upon the will of such a king as James, and "constraining the lines of his life" to express his thankfulness to such a patron as Villiers. PART II BACON'S WORKS § 45 THE REVOLT AGAINST ARISTOTLE ALTHOUGH Bacon always speaks of his own philosophy as quite new and different from all philosophic systems that had gone before, yet he was at least partially aware that, on its negative side, and in its protest against excessive deference to the authority of Aristotle, his work had been anticipated. He had entered into the fruits of the labours of many predecessors, some of whom are mentioned in his pages; and without a brief review of their work, it would be difficult to realise the nature of the task he undertook. As early as the thirteenth century his namesake, Roger Bacon (born about 1214), had protested against the Aristotelian despotism, in behalf of a new learning which should be based on experience and should produce fruit. In language which reminds us of Francis Bacon's Idols, he imputes human ignorance to four causes: authority, custom, popular opinion, and the pride of supposed knowledge. Nor could the author of the Novum Organum have uttered a more confident prediction of the results to be expected from the practical application of the New Learning than is found in the passage where Roger Bacon declares that, as Aristotle by ways of wisdom gave Alexander the kingdom of the world, so Science can enable the Church to triumph over Antichrist by disclosing the secrets of nature and art. But the Schoolmen were too strong for Roger Bacon. Beginning with John Scotus Erigena in the ninth century, and |