CHAPTER XXIV

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THE MISSING FOURTH PART OF "THE GREAT INSTAURATION."

It has been urged by critics that Bacon, whilst professing to take all knowledge for his province, ignored one-half of it--that half which was a knowledge of himself; that to him the external world was everything, the internal nothing. All that Nature revealed was external; nothing that was internal was of much importance.

It must be remembered that all that we have of Bacon's was written as he was passing into the "vale of life." Of his early productions nothing has come down to the present times under his own name. The following extracts from his acknowledged works establish two facts:--(1) That the foregoing criticism is unfounded, for he placed the study of man's mind and character above all other enquiries. (2) That he had prepared examples, being "actual types and models, by which the entire process of the mind and the whole fabric and order of invention from the beginning to the end in certain subjects and those various and remarkable should be set, as it were, before the eyes." Where are these works to be found?

Bacon never tires of quoting from the Roman poet the line--

"Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci,"

which, in an Elizabethan handwriting, may be seen in a contemporary volume thus rendered--

"He of all others fittest is to write Which with some profit allso ioynes delight."

He repeats in different forms, until the reiteration becomes almost tedious, the following incident:--

"And as Alexander Borgia was wont to say, of the expedition of the French for Naples, that they came with chalk in their hands to marke up their lodgings not with weapons to fight; so we like better, that entry of truth, which comes peaceably where the Mindes of men, capable to lodge so great a guest, are signed, as it were, with chalke; than that which comes with Pugnacity, and forceth itselfe a way by contentions and controversies."

The same idea is embodied in the following example of the antitheta:--

"A witty conceit is oftentimes a convoy of a Truth which otherwise could not so handsomely have been ferried over."

In the "Advancement of Learning," Lib. II., again the same view is insisted on:--

"Besides in all wise humane Government, they that sit at the helme, doe more happily bring their purposes about, and insinuate more easily things fit for the people, by pretexts, and oblique courses; than by downe-right dealing. Nay (which perchance may seem very strange) in things meerely naturall, you may sooner deceive nature, than force her; so improper, and selfe impeaching are open direct proceedings; whereas on the other side, an oblique and an insinuing way, gently glides along and compasseth the intended effect."

One other fact must be realised before the full import of the quotations about to be made can be appreciated. In the "Distributio Operis" prefixed to the "Novum Organum" the following significant passage occurs[55]:--

"For as often as I have occasion to report anything as deficient, the nature of which is at all obscure, so that men may not perhaps easily understand what I mean or what the work is which I have in my head, I shall always (provided it be a matter of any worth) take care to subjoin either directions for the execution of such work, or else a portion of the work itself executed by myself as a sample of the whole: thus giving assistance in every case either by work or by counsel."

In the "Advancement of Learning," Book II., chap. i., it is written:

"That is the truest Partition of humane Learning, which hath reference to the three Faculties of Man's soule, which is the feat of Learning. History is referred to Memory, Poesy to the Imagination, Philosophy to Reason. By Poesy, in this place, we understand nothing else, but feigned History, or Fables. As for Verse, that is only a style of expression, and pertaines to the Art of Elocution, of which in due place."

"Poesy, in that sense we have expounded it, is likewise of Individuals, fancied to the similitude of those things which in true History are recorded, yet so as often it exceeds measure; and those things which in Nature would never meet, nor come to passe, Poesy composeth and introduceth at pleasure, even as Painting doth: which indeed is the work of the Imagination."

And in the same book,