eBook - ePub
The Wisdom of the Ancients
Francis Bacon
This is a test
Share book
- 142 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
The Wisdom of the Ancients
Francis Bacon
Book details
Book preview
Table of contents
Citations
About This Book
Bacon published this interesting little work in 1609. It contains thirty-one fables abounding with a union of deep thought and poetic beauty. In most fables he explains the common but erroneous supposition that knowledge and the conformity of the will, knowing and acting, are convertible terms.
Frequently asked questions
How do I cancel my subscription?
Can/how do I download books?
At the moment all of our mobile-responsive ePub books are available to download via the app. Most of our PDFs are also available to download and we're working on making the final remaining ones downloadable now. Learn more here.
What is the difference between the pricing plans?
Both plans give you full access to the library and all of Perlego’s features. The only differences are the price and subscription period: With the annual plan you’ll save around 30% compared to 12 months on the monthly plan.
What is Perlego?
We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, we’ve got you covered! Learn more here.
Do you support text-to-speech?
Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.
Is The Wisdom of the Ancients an online PDF/ePUB?
Yes, you can access The Wisdom of the Ancients by Francis Bacon in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Philosophie & Empirie in der Philosophie. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Topic
PhilosophieSubtopic
Empirie in der PhilosophiePreface
THE
earliest antiquity lies buried in silence and oblivion, excepting the remains
we have of it in sacred writ. This silence was succeeded by poetical fables and
these, at length, by the writings we now enjoy; so that the concealed and
secret learning of the ancients seems separated from the history and knowledge
of the following ages by a veil, or partition-wall of fables, interposing
between the things that are lost and those that remain.[1]
Many
may imagine that I am here entering upon a work of fancy; or amusement, and
design to use a poetical liberty, in explaining poetical fables. It is true,
fables in general are composed of ductile matter, that may be drawn into great
variety by a witty talent or an inventive genius, and be delivered of plausible
meanings which they never contained. But this procedure has already been
carried to excess; and great numbers, to procure the sanction of antiquity to
their own notions and inventions, have miserably wrested and abused the fables
of the ancients.
Nor
is this only a late or unfrequent practice, but of ancient date and common even
to this day. Thus Chrysippus, like an interpreter of dreams, attributed the
opinions of the Stoics to the poets of old; and the chemists, at present, more
childishly apply the poetical transformations to their experiments of the
furnace. And though I have well weighed and considered all this, and thoroughly
seen into the levity which the mind indulges for allegories and allusions, yet
I cannot but retain a high value for the ancient mythology. And, certainly, it
were very injudicious to suffer the fondness and licentiousness of a few to
detract from the honour of allegory and parable in general. This would be rash,
and almost profane; for, since religion delights in such shadows and disguises,
to abolish them were, in a manner, to prohibit all intercourse betwixt things
divine and human.
Upon
deliberate consideration, my judgment is, that a concealed instruction and
allegory was originally intended in many of the ancient fables. This opinion
may, in some respect, be owing to the veneration I have for antiquity, but more
to observing that some fables discover a great and evident similitude,
relation, and connection with the thing they signify, as well in the structure
of the fable as in the propriety of the names whereby the persons or actors are
characterized; insomuch, that no one could positively deny a sense and meaning
to be from the first intended, and purposely shadowed out in them. For who can
hear that Fame, after the giants were destroyed, sprung up as their posthumous
sister, and not apply it to the clamour of parties and the seditious rumours
which commonly fly about for a time upon the quelling of insurrections? Or who
can read how the giant Typhon cut out and carried away Jupiter's sinews - which
Mercury afterwards stole and again restored to Jupiter - and not presently
observe that this allegory denotes strong and powerful rebellions, which cut
away from kings their sinews, both of money and authority; and that the way to
have them restored is by lenity, affability, and prudent edicts, which soon
reconcile, and as it were steal upon the affections of the subject? Or who,
upon hearing that memorable expedition of the gods against the giants, when the
braying of Silenus's ass greatly contributed in putting the giants to flight,
does not clearly conceive that this directly points at the monstrous
enterprises of rebellious subjects, which are frequently frustrated and
disappointed by vain fears and empty rumours?
Again,
the conformity and purport of the names is frequently manifest and
self-evident. Thus Metis the wife of Jupiter, plainly signifies counsel;
Typhon, swelling; Pan, universality; Nemesis, revenge, &c. Nor is it a
wonder, if sometimes a piece of history or other things are introduced, by way
of ornament; or if the times of the action are confounded; or if part of one
fable be tacked to another; or if the allegory be new turned; for all this must
necessarily happen, as the fables were the inventions of men who lived in
different ages and had different views; some of them being ancient, others more
modern; some having an eye to natural philosophy, and others to morality or
civil policy.
It
may pass for a farther indication of a concealed and secret meaning, that some
of these fables are so absurd and idle in their narration as to show and
proclaim an allegory, even afar off. A fable that carries probability with it
may be supposed invented for pleasure, or in imitation of history; but those
that could never be conceived or related in this way must surely have a
different use. For example, what a monstrous fiction is this, that Jupiter should
take Metis to wife, and as soon as he found her pregnant eat her up, whereby he
also conceived, and out of his head brought forth Pallas armed. Certainly no
mortal could, but for the sake of the moral it couches, invent such an absurd
dream as this, so much out of the road of thought!
But
the argument of most weight with me is this, that many of these fables by no
means appear to have been invented by the persons who relate and divulge them,
whether Homer, Hesiod, or others; for if I were assured they first flowed from
those later times and authors that transmit them to us, I should never expect
anything singularly great or noble from such an origin. But who-ever
attentively considers the thing, will find that these fables are delivered down
and related by those writers, not as matters then first invented and proposed,
but as things received and embraced in earlier ages. Besides, as they are
differently related by writers nearly of the same ages, it is easily perceived
that the relators drew from the common stock of ancient tradition, and varied
but in point of embellishment, which is their own. And this principally raises
my esteem of these fables, which I receive, not as the product of the age, or
invention of the poets, but as sacred relics, gentle whispers, and the breath
of better times, that from the traditions of more ancient nations came, at
length, into the flutes and trumpets of the Greeks. But if any one shall,
notwithstanding this, contend that allegories are always adventitious, or
imposed upon the ancient fables, and no way native or genuinely contained in
them, we might here leave him undisturbed in that gravity of judgment he
affects (though we cannot help accounting it somewhat dull and phlegmatic), and
if it were worth the trouble, proceed to another kind of argument.
Men
have proposed to answer two different and contrary ends by the use of parable;
for parables serve as well to instruct or illustrate as to wrap up and envelop,
so that though, for the present, we drop the concealed use, and suppose the
ancient fables to be vague, undeterminate things, formed for amusement, still
the other use must remain, and can never be given up. And every man, of any
learning, must readily allow that this method of instructing is grave, sober,
or exceedingly useful, and sometimes necessary in the sciences, as it opens an
easy and familiar passage to the human understanding, in all new discoveries
that are abstruse and out of the road of vulgar opinions. Hence, in the first
ages, when such inventions and conclusions of the human reason as are now trite
and common were new and little known, all things abounded with fables,
parables, similes, comparisons and allusions, which were not intended to
conceal, but to inform and teach, whilst the minds of men continued rude and
unpractised in matters of subtilty and speculation, or even impatient, and in a
manner uncapable of receiving such things as did not directly fall under and
strike the senses. For as hieroglyphics were in use before writing, so were
parables in use before arguments. And even to this day, if any man would let
new light in upon the human understanding, and conquer prejudice, without
raising contests, animosities, opposition, or disturbance, he must still go in
the same path, and have recourse to the like method of allegory, metaphor, and
allusion.
To
conclude, the knowledge of the early ages was either great or happy; great, if
they by design made this use of trope and figure; happy, if, whilst they had
other views, they afforded matter and occasion to such noble contemplations.
Let either be the case, our pains, perhaps, will not be misemployed, whether we
illustrate antiquity or things themselves.
The
like indeed has been attempted by others; but to speak ingenuously, their great
and voluminous labours have almost destroyed the energy, the efficacy, and
grace of the thing, whilst being unskilled in nature, and their learning no
more than that of commonplace, they have applied the sense of the parables to
certain general and vulgar matters, without reaching to their real purport,
genuine interpretation, and fill depth. For myself, therefore, I expect to
appear new in these common things, because, leaving untouched such as are
sufficiently plain and open, I shall drive only at those that are either deep
or rich.
Chapter I
Cassandra,
or Divination Explained of too Free and
Unseasonable Advice
THE Poets relate, that Apollo, falling in love with Cassandra, was still deluded and put off by her, yet fed with hopes, till she had got from him the gift of prophecy; and having now obtained her end, she flatly rejected his suit. Apollo, unable to recall his rash gift, yet enraged to be outwitted by a girl, annexed this penalty to it, that though she should always prophesy true, she should never be believed; whence her divinations were always slighted, even when she again and again predicted the ruin of her country.
EXPLANATION. - This fable seems invented to express the insignificance of unseasonable advice. For they who are conceited, stubborn, or intractable, and listen not to the instructions of Apollo, the god of harmony, so as to learn and observe the modulations and measures of affairs, the sharps and flats of discourse, the difference between judicious and vulgar ears, and the proper times of speech and silence, let them be ever so intelligent, and ever so frank of their advice, or their counsels ever so good and just, yet all their endeavours, either of persuasion or force, are of little significance, and rather hasten the ruin of those they advise. But, at last, when the calamitous event has made the sufferers feel the effect of their neglect, they too late reverence their advisers, as deep, foreseeing, and faithful prophets.
Of
this we have a remarkable instance in Cato of Utica, who discovered afar off,
and long foretold, the approaching ruin of his country, both in the first
conspiracy, and as it was prosecuted in the civil war between Cæsar and Pompey
yet did no good the while, but rather hurt the commonwealth, and hurried on its
destruction, which Cicero wisely observed in these words: "Cato, indeed,
judges excellently, but prejudices the state; for he speaks as in the
commonwealth of Plato, and not as in the dregs of Romulus."
Chapter II
Typhon, or a Rebel Explained of Rebellion
THE fable runs, that Juno, enraged at Jupiter's bringing forth Pallas without her assistance, incessantly solicited all the gods and goddesses, that she might produce without Jupiter: and having by violence and importunity obtained the grant, she struck the earth, and thence immediately sprung up Typhon, a huge and dreadful monster, whom she committed to the nursing of a serpent. As soon as he was grown up, this monster waged war on Jupiter, and taking him prisoner in the battle, carried him away on his shoulders, into a remote and obscure quarter: and there cutting out the sinews of his hands and feet, he bore them off, leaving Jupiter behind miserably maimed and mangled.
But Mercury afterwards stole these sinews from Typhon, and restored them to Jupiter. Hence, recovering his strength, Jupiter again pursues the monster; first wounds him with a stroke of his thunder, when serpents arose from the blood of the wound: and now the monster being dismayed, and taking to flight, Jupiter next darted Mount Ætna upon him, and crushed him with the weight.
EXPLANATION. - This fable seems designed to express the various fates of kings, and the turns that rebellions sometimes take, in kingdoms. For princes may be justly esteemed married to their states, as Jupiter to Juno : but it sometimes happens, that, being depraved by long wielding of the sceptre, and growing tyrannical, they would engross all to themselves; and slighting the counsel of their senators and nobles, conceive by themselves; that is, govern according to their own arbitrary will and pleasure. This inflames the people, and makes them endeavour to create and set up some head of their own. Such designs are generally set on foot by the secret motion and instigation of the peers and nobles, under whose connivance the common sort are prepared for rising: whence proceeds a swell in the state, which is appositely denoted by the nursing of Typhon. This growing posture of affairs is fed by the natural depravity, and malignant dispositions of the vulgar, which to kings is an envenomed serpent. And now the disaffected, uniting their force, at length break out into open rebellion, which, producing infinite mischiefs, both to prince and people, is represented by the horrid and multiplied deformity of Typhon, with his hundred heads, denoting the divided powers; his flaming mouths, denoting fire and devastation; his girdles of snakes, denoting sieges and destruction; his iron hands, slaughter and cruelty; his eagle's talons, rapine and plunder; his plumed body, perpetual rumours, contradictory accounts, &c. And sometimes these rebellions grow so high, that kings are obliged, as if carried on the backs of the rebels, to quit the throne, and retire to some remote and obscure part of their dominions, with the loss of their sinews, both of money and majesty.
But if now they prudently bear this reverse of fortune, they may, in a short time, by the assistance of Mercury, recover their sinews again; that is, by becoming moderate and affable; reconciling the minds and affections of the people to them, by gracious speeches, and prudent proclamations, which will win over the subject cheerfully to afford new aids and supplies, and add fresh vigour to authority. But prudent and wary princes here seldom incline to try fortune by a war, yet do their utmost, by some grand exploit, to crush the reputation of the rebels: and if the attempt succeeds, the rebels, conscious of the wound received, and distrustful of their cause, first betake themselves to broken...