Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients

625 Syrinx, signifying a reed, or the ancient pen.

626 Ovid, Metam. b. iv.

627 Thus it is the excellence of a general, early to discover what turn the battle is likely to take; and looking prudently behind, as well as before, to pursue a victory so as not to be unprovided for a retreat.

628 It may be remembered that the Athenian peasant voted for the banishment of Aristides, because he was called the Just. Shakspeare forcibly expresses the same thought:—

“Let me have men about me that are fat;

Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o’ nights:

Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;

He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.”

If Bacon had completed his intended work upon “Sympathy and Antipathy,” the constant hatred evinced by ignorance of intellectual superiority, originating sometimes in the painful feeling of inferiority, sometimes in the fear of worldly injury would not have escaped his notice.

629 Thus we see that Orpheus denotes learning; Eurydice, things, or the subject of learning; Bacchus, and the Thracian women, men’s ungoverned passions and appetites, &c. And in the same manner all the ancient fables might be familiarly illustrated, and brought down to the capacities of children.

630

“Quod procul a nobis flectat Fortuna gubernans;

Et ratio potius quam res persuadeat ipsa.”

631 Proteus properly signifies primary, oldest, or first.

632 Bacon nowhere speaks with such freedom and perspicuity as under the pretext of explaining these ancient fables; for which reason they deserve to be the more read by such as desire to understand the rest of his works.

633 As she also brought the author himself.

634

“—————cadit Ripheus, justissimus unus,

Qui fuit ex Teucris, et servantissimus æqui:

Diis aliter visum.”—Æneid, lib. ii.

635 Te autem mi Brute sicut debeo, amo, quod istud quicquid est nugarum me scire voluisti.

636

“Regina in mediis patrio vocat agmina sistro;

Necdum etiam geminos a tergo respicit angues.”

Æneid, viii. 696.

637 Ovid’s Metamorphoses, b. iii., iv., and vi.; and Fasti, iii. 767.

638 “Declinat cursus, aurumque volubile tollit.”

639 The author, in all his physical works, proceeds upon this foundation, that it is possible, and practicable, for art to obtain the victory over nature; that is, for human industry and power to procure, by the means of proper knowledge, such things as are necessary to render life as happy and commodious as its mortal state will allow. For instance, that it is possible to lengthen the present period of human life; bring the winds under command: and every way extend and enlarge the dominion or empire of man over the works of nature.

640 “All-gift.”

641 Viz: that by Pandora.

642

“Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,

Quique metus omnes et inexorabile fatum

Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari.”

Georg. ii. 490.

643De Augmentis Scientiarum, sec. xxviii. and supplem. xv.

644 An allusion which, in Plato’s writings, is applied to the rapid succession of generations, through which the continuity of human life is maintained from age to age; and which are perpetually transferring from hand to hand the concerns and duties of this fleeting scene. Γεννῶντες τε καὶ ἐκτρέφοντες παῖδας, κάθαπερ λαμπάδα τὸν βίον παραδιδόντες ἄλλοις ἐξ ἄλλων—Plato, Leg. b. vi. Lucretius also has the same metaphor:—

“Et quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt.”

645 Eccles. xii. 11.

646 This is what the author so frequently inculcates in the Novum Organum, viz: that knowledge and power are reciprocal; so that to improve in knowledge is to improve in the power of commanding nature, by introducing new arts, and producing works and effects.