APPENDIX I1

63 PROFESSOR FOWLER'S DEFENCE OF BACON'S MORALITY

There have not been wanting modern defenders of Bacon's morality who are unwilling that he should be called in any sense a pupil of Machiavelli. "Nothing," says one of these,2 "can well be more remote either from what is ordinarily understood by Machiavellism, or from some of the actual utterances of Machiavelli himself, when taken in their literal sense, than such. passages as the following, expressing, as I believe, Bacon's genuine sentiments: I take Goodness in this sense, the affecting of the weal of men, which is that the Grecians call Philanthropia. This of all virtues and dignities of the mind is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing; no better than a kind of vermin, &c.' '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."" And the same advocate defends Bacon for teaching the Art of Selfadvancement, on the ground that a moralist is justified in giving "rules for bettering one's own fortune, provided, at least, that such rules are not likely to interfere with the general welfare."

Such a defence does not meet the case. It is not by showing that Bacon theoretically admires goodness that we can disprove the fact that he was influenced by Machiavelli. Machiavelli himself is as frank as his pupil in recognizing theoretically the badness of the Evil Arts which he systematises. 1 Note on p. 325.

2 Professor Fowler, Francis Bacon, p. 41.

"These ways," says the teacher, " are cruel and contrary, not only to civil, but to Christian, and, indeed, human conversation; for which reason they are to be rejected by everybody; for certainly 'tis better to remain a private person than to make oneself king by the calamity and destruction of one's people. Nevertheless, he who neglects to take the first good way, if he would preserve himself, must make use of the bad."

It is not, therefore, by quoting theoretical condemnations of selfishness, or praises of truthfulness, that an advocate can hope to justify the morality of the Essays. The justification must be effected, if at all, by showing that Bacon does not "give rules for bettering one's fortunes" without " providing that such rules shall not interfere with the general welfare." But this cannot be shown. Against the enthusiastic eulogy of Goodness above quoted, we are forced to set the caution-true enough, but suspicious in a treatise great part of which is taken up with precepts concerning the art of "bettering one's fortunes”—that "extreme lovers of their country or masters were never fortunate, neither can they be."1 Against the statement that "clear and round dealing is the honour of man's nature," we must place the admissions that, "No man can be secret except he give himself a little scope of dissimulation," 2 and that "the best composition and temperature is to have openness in fame and opinion, secrecy in habit, dissimulation in seasonable use, and a power to feign if there be no remedy." 3 As for politicians, tortuosity and deceit are considered by Bacon almost matters of necessity in them: "Such (envious) dispositions are the very errors of human nature, and yet they are the fittest timber to make great Politiques of, like to knee-timber, that is good for ships that are ordained to be tossed, but not for building houses that shall stand firm."4 It is true that he dislikes and dreads the predominance of cunning: "Nothing," he says, "doth more hurt in a State than that cunning men pass for wise." 5 But in his Essay on Truth he is obliged to admit that "mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better," though the metal is debased

1 Essays, xl. 32.

2 Ibid. vi. 76.

4 lbid. xiii. 68, "knee-timber" is "crooked timber." 5 lbid. xxii. 118.

3 lbid. vi. 110-113.

by it. And in practice we have found that Bacon considered this alloy not unfrequently necessary.

Again, we have seen that one part of Bacon's Art of Selfadvancement-or, as he called it, the Architecture of Fortuneconsisted in "morigeration," that is, in accommodating oneself to the ways of great men; another consisted in Ostentation, or showing off one's abilities to the best advantage; and one of the precepts of this art is that "Honour that is gained and broken upon another hath the quickest reflection, like diamonds cut with facets; and therefore let a man contend to excel any competitors of his honour in out-shooting them, if he can, in their own bow." 2 Those who defend these and other similar precepts as "not likely to interfere with the general welfare" can hardly have realised what their author meant by them, and must be referred to his own interpretation of them in the Commentarius Solutus. There we found Bacon making notes with the view of putting these precepts in practice; deliberately preparing to conform himself to Salisbury's humours and to support Salisbury's propositions, whether right or wrong, at the Council Board; seeking opportunities for attending the King at meals, and for engaging great persons in conversation in public places, thereby to increase his own reputation; trying to show one great Lord how far he (Bacon) is superior to the present AttorneyGeneral, and another great Lord what reverence he would receive from him (Bacon) if he were Lord Chancellor; elaborating compliments and messages of condolence and little arrangements to induce lesser persons to remember him in their wills; and systematically noting down a rival's weakness and shortcomings, in order that he may drop out casual epigrams holding them up to ridicule, so as to prepare the way for ousting him from his office in order that he himself might step into the vacant place. All this is very small and mean and far below the level of the villainy of the Evil Arts of Machiavelli; but it does not cease to be bad merely because it is not colossal; it does not cease to be hollow, false, demoralizing, fatal to all purity and nobility in social life, because it is-truth compels us to say it even of so great a genius-marvellously and portentously contemptible. Surely

such a doctrine of the Architecture of Fortune, to be built up upon petty untruthfulness and petty ostentation, cannot be sheltered-in the face of such plain practical illustrations of its tendency, afforded us by the author himself-under the quiet assumption that "such rules are not likely to interfere with the general welfare."1

1 The author of Daniel Deronda appears to me to have had Francis Bacon in her mind when she wrote the following defence of dissimulation and Deronda's retort. "There's a bad style of humbug, but there's also a good style, one that oils the wheels and makes progress possible Council against popular shallowness. There is no action possible without a little . . It's no use having an Order of acting.'

"One may be obliged to give way to an occasional necessity," said Deronda. "But it is one thing to say, In this particular case I am forced to put on this foolscap and grin,' and another to buy a pocket foolscap and practise myself in grinning If I were to set up for a public man, I might mistake my own success for public expediency."

A few pages further on she speaks of such systematic dissimulation as being destructive of "that openness which is the sweet fresh air of our moral life."

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