I. April
19 Bacon and BaconÕs essays
A. Image
B. 3: 10—3:20 Bacon Bio
1.
General
a)
1561-1626
b)
(22
January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher, statesman,
scientist, jurist and author. He served both as Attorney
General and Lord
Chancellor of England. Although his political career ended in disgrace, he
remained extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical
advocate and practitioner of the scientific method
during the scientific
revolution.
c)
Noble
family
d)
During
his travels, Bacon studied language, statecraft, and civil law while performing
routine diplomatic tasks.
e)
Bacon's
threefold goals were to uncover truth, to serve his country, and to serve his
church. He sought to further these ends by seeking a prestigious post.
f)
His
parliamentary career began when he was elected MP for Bossiney,
Devon in a 1581 by-election
g)
He
became known as a liberal-minded reformer, eager to amend and simplify the law.
He opposed feudal privileges and dictatorial powers, though a friend of the
crown.
h)
In
1598 Bacon was arrested for debt.
i)
The
following year, Bacon married Alice Barnham, the
fourteen-year-old daughter of a well-connected London alderman and MPÉ Bacon
disinherited her upon discovering her secret romantic relationship with John
Underhill.
(1)
Bacon preferred masculine friendship to heterosexual love,
for "although nuptial love maketh
mankind, friendly love perfecteth
it" ["Of Love"].
(2)
Bacon did not marry until the late age of forty-eight, and
contemporary figures relate that he was by preference homosexual. John Aubrey
in his Brief Lives
says quite bluntly that Bacon "was a pederast" and had "ganimeds
and favourites" ("pederast" in Renaissance diction meant
generally "homosexual" rather than specifically a lover of minors;
(3)
James the Queen
(a) While riding through the bustling
streets of London from 1603 to 1621, one was liable to hear the shout
"Long live Queen James!" an epigram: Rex fuit Elizabeth: nunc est regina Jacobus—"Elizabeth
was King: now James is Queen."
(b) I, James, am neither a god nor an
angel, but a man like any other. Therefore I act like a man and confess to
loving those dear to me more than other men. You may be sure that I love the
Earl of Buckingham more than anyone else, and more than you who are here
assembled. I wish to speak in my own behalf and not to have it thought to be a
defect, for Jesus Christ did the same, and therefore I cannot be blamed. Christ
had John, and I have George.
k)
Bacon
died by contracting pneumonia
while studying the effects of freezing on the preservation of meat.
2.
Politics
a)
Bacon
continued to use his influence with the king to mediate between the throne and
Parliament
b)
Lord
Chancellor under James; disgraced for taking bribes—everybody did
it—in 1621Érise and fall—imprisoned and forced from office
(1)
He was sentenced to a fine of £40,000 and committed to the Tower of London during
the king's pleasure; the imprisonment lasted only a few days and the fine was
remitted by the king. More seriously, parliament declared Bacon
incapable of holding future office or sitting in parliament.
c)
Francis
Bacon played a leading role in creating the British colonies, especially in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Newfoundland
in northeastern Canada. His government report on ÒThe Virginia ColonyÓ was
submitted in 1609.
3.
Law
a)
before
the end of the seventeenth century Sir Matthew Hale É
acknowledged Bacon as the inventor of the process of discovering unwritten laws
from the evidences of their applications. Bacon is considered by some jurists
to be the father of modern Jurisprudence.
4.
Occult Bacon
a)
Despite
the academic consensus that Shakespeare wrote the works bearing his name and
the decline of the theory, supporters of Bacon continue to argue for his
candidacy through organizations, books, newsletters, and websites. http://SirBacon.org
b)
the
Occult Bacon—the irony given his skeptical rationalism
(1)
leader of rosicrucians
(2)
Beginning early in the 20th century in the United States, a number
of Ascended
Master Teachings organizationsbegan making the claim that Francis Bacon had
never died. They believed that soon after completing the
"Shake-Speare" plays, he had feigned his own death on Easter Sunday,
April 9, 1626 - doing so in Easter Sunday as a symbolism - and then traveled
extensively outside of England, eventually attaining his physical Ascension to
another plane
on May 1, 1684 in a castle in Transylvania owned by the Rakoczi family.
C. 3:20—3:55 Essays
1.
General
a)
Renaissance
prose; dense and elegant as poetry
b)
Essays—Montaigne—essay
or trial or attempt
c)
Opposite
of Montaigne—no ÒIÓ; aphoristic mouthpiece of societyÕs accumulated
wisdom—experience and learning
(1)
Aphorisms; man of the world; careful negotiation
(2) Contrast
subjectivity of erotic and devotional poetry—but objective citizen and
public official, Òman of affairs.Ó
d)
Following
the movement of the mind; both logical and associative—like Donne and
Herbert; need to enter the authorÕs subjective space in order to keep up
with/make sense of what theyÕre saying—like a soliloquy in Shakespeare
(1)
Et utramque partem: Of Marriage and Single Life
2.
3:20-3:30 ÒOf
StudiesÓ pp. 1561-63
a)
Introduction
(1)
Humanist bookishness; bibliolatry; why and how to read
(2)
How do we respond—having to read these books and
specifically this dense prose?
(3)
Sharpening the mind
(4)
Getting the picture
(1) Divide into
categories to be explored later
(2) Experience and
study—vs. auctoritee—the Wife of Bath
c)
To
spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is
affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar.
(1) The negatives
after the positives
d)
They
perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like
natural plants, that need pruning, by study; and studies themselves, do give
forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.
(1) Back to
experience and study in tension
e)
Crafty
men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they
teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won
by observation.
(1) Triplex
attudes—incorrect to correct
f)
Read
not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find
talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.
(1) Again incorrect
to correct: 3 to 1
(2) DonÕt take it on
authority; study needs to be critical
g)
Some
books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and
digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read,
but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and
attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by
others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner
sort of books, else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy
things.
(1) How to read
h)
Reading
maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And
therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer
little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have
much cunning, to seem to know, that he doth not.
(1) Disconnected
aphorism
i)
Histories
make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep;
moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores.
[studies lead to manners]
(1) Kinds of readings
and their rewards
j)
Nay,
there is no stond or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit
studies; like as diseases of the body, may have appropriate exercises. Bowling
is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle
walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man's wit
be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit
be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to
distinguish or find differences, let him study the Schoolmen; for they are
cymini sectores. [hairsplitters] If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to
call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers'
cases. So every defect of the mind, may have a special receipt.
(1)
Study as mental exercise and therapy
(2)
Reading this and Donne and Chaucer, etc.?
3.
ÒOf Marriage
and the Single LifeÓ p. 1553
(1) *Original phrase
b)
Yet
it were great reason that those that have children, should have greatest care
of future times; unto which they know they must transmit their dearest pledges.
(1) *considering from
several sides—pro and con
(2) sense of public
service
c)
Some
there are, who though they lead a single life, yet their thoughts do end with
themselves, and account future times impertinences. Nay, there are some other,
that account wife and children, but as bills of charges. Nay more, there are
some foolish rich covetous men that take a pride, in having no children,
because they may be thought so much the richer. For perhaps they have heard
some talk, Such an one is a great rich man, and another except to it, Yea, but
he hath a great charge of children; as if it were an abatement to his riches.
(1) downside
d)
But
the most ordinary cause of a single life, is liberty, especially in certain
self-pleasing and humorous minds, which are so sensible of every restraint, as
they will go near to think their girdles and garters, to be bonds and shackles.
(1) Devaluing
objection; sarcasm
e)
Unmarried
men are best friends, best masters, best servants; but not always best
subjects; for they are light to run away; and almost all fugitives, are of that
condition.
f)
A
single life doth well with churchmen; for charity will hardly water the ground,
where it must first fill a pool. It is indifferent for judges and magistrates;
for if they be facile and corrupt, you shall have a servant, five times worse
than a wife.
g)
For
soldiers, I find the generals commonly in their hortatives, put men in mind of
their wives and children; and I think the despising of marriage amongst the
Turks, maketh the vulgar soldier more base.
h)
Certainly
wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity; and single men, though
they may be many times more charitable, because their means are less exhaust,
yet, on the other side, they are more cruel and hardhearted (good to make
severe inquisitors), because their tenderness is not so oft called upon.
(1) Back and forth
i)
Grave
natures, led by custom, and therefore constant, are commonly loving husbands,
as was said of Ulysses, vetulam suam praetulit immortalitati.
j)
Chaste
women are often proud and froward, as presuming upon the merit of their
chastity.
(1) Shifting topic to
marriage
k)
It is
one of the best bonds, both of chastity and obedience, in the wife, if she
think her husband wise; which she will never do, if she find him jealous.
l)
Wives
are young men's mistresses; companions for middle age; and old men's nurses. So
as a man may have a quarrel to marry, when he will. But yet he was reputed one
of the wise men, that made answer to the question, when a man should marry,- A
young man not yet, an elder man not at all.
(1) Pros and cons
m)
It is
often seen that bad husbands, have very good wives; whether it be, that it
raiseth the price of their husband's kindness, when it comes; or that the wives
take a pride in their patience. But this never fails, if the bad husbands were
of their own choosing, against their friends' consent; for then they will be
sure to make good their own folly.
(1)
Sympathizing with oppressed wife
4.
3:30-3:40 ÒOf SuperstitionÓ p. 1556
a)
Notes
(1)
Superstition used by protestants to refer to catholics
(2)
Plutarch 26-120 CE—ShakespeareÕs Plays about Greeks
and Romans
(3)
Morality and ethics over doctrine—
(a) Utopians—tolerance vs.
religious warfare—
(b) 30 years war and English civil war
and earlier tensions between Catholics and Protestants
(c) preference for the Romans under Augustus
who maintained order
(d) suspicion of Òthe peopleÓ
(e) arguments fitted to practice rather
than reverse—rationalization rather than reason
(f) causes for irrationality listed,
including Òthe taking an aim at divine matters, by human, which cannot but
breed mixture of imaginationsÓ
(g) similitude of superstition to
religion, makes it the more deformed—epistemological uncertainty
(h) middle way and self aware,
non-docrinaire skepticism:
(i) There
is a superstition in avoiding superstition, when men think to do best, if they go
furthest from the superstition, formerly received
(ii) Dig at the people
and ÒreformersÓ who reject all religious practices
(i)
http://science.jrank.org/pages/11366/Superstition-Superstition-in-Protestant-Catholic-Reformations.html
Bacon listed as superstitions "pleasing and sensual rites and ceremonies;
excess of outward and pharisaical holiness; [and] overgreat reverence of
traditions," recapitulating common Protestant anti-Catholic
rhetoric. The charge of superstition was also a polemical weapon in
intra-Protestant battles. Bacon also hinted that there was a "superstition
in avoiding superstition, when men think to do best, if they go furthest from
the superstition, formerly received" a veiled thrust at the extreme Protestants of his day
(Bacon, p. 40).
(4)
Puritans and non-conformists are excessive [at end] James 1;
the King James Bible
b)
text
(2) Atheism leaves a
man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation all which
may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but
superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy, in the
minds of men. Therefore atheism did never perturb states; for it makes men wary
of themselves, as looking no further: and we see the times inclined to atheism
(as the time of Augustus Caesar) were civil times.
(3) But superstition
hath been the confusion of many states, and bringeth in a new primum mobile,
that ravisheth all the spheres of government.
(4) The master of
superstition, is the people; and in all superstition, wise men follow fools;
and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reversed order.
(5) It was gravely
said by some of the prelates in the Council of Trent, where the doctrine of the
Schoolmen bare great sway, that the Schoolmen were like astronomers, which did
feign eccentrics and epicycles, and such engines of orbs, to save the
phenomena; though they knew there were no such things; and in like manner, that
the Schoolmen had framed a number of subtle and intricate axioms, and theorems,
to save the practice of the church.
(6) The causes of
superstition are: pleasing and sensual rites and ceremonies; excess of outward
and pharisaical holiness; overgreat reverence of traditions, which cannot but
load the church; the stratagems of prelates, for their own ambition and lucre;
the favoring too much of good intentions, which openeth the gate to conceits
and novelties; the taking an aim at divine matters, by human, which cannot but
breed mixture of imaginations: and, lastly, barbarous times, especially joined
with calamities and disasters.
(7) Superstition,
without a veil, is a deformed thing; for, as it addeth deformity to an ape, to
be so like a man, so the similitude of superstition to religion, makes it the
more deformed. And as wholesome meat corrupteth to little worms, so good forms
and orders corrupt, into a number of petty observances.
(8) There is a
superstition in avoiding superstition, when men think to do best, if they go
furthest from the superstition, formerly received; therefore care would be had
that (as it fareth in the good be not taken away with the bad; which commonly
is done, when the people is the reformer.
5.
3:40-3:55 ÒOf TruthÓ p.1552
(1) Pilate therefore
said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a
king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I
should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my
voice. 38Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said
this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no
fault at all.
b)
Certainly
there be, that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief;
affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting. And though the sects of
philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits,
which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them, as was
in those of the ancients.
(1) Mocking the
skeptics as in Marriage and the Single and Superstition
(2) This describes
Pilate and applies to Montaigne and to LearÕs fool
(3) The first reason
to not seek truth
c)
But
it is not only the difficulty and labor, which men take in finding out of
truth, nor again, that when it is found, it imposeth upon men's thoughts, that
doth bring lies in favor; but a natural though corrupt love, of the lie itself.
(1) Attraction of the
lie—jest; More, etc.
d)
One
of the later school of the Grecians, examineth the matter, and is at a stand,
to think what should be in it, that men should love lies; where neither they
make for pleasure, as with poets, nor for advantage, as with the merchant; but
for the lie's sake.
(1) Why do we love
lies?
e)
But I
cannot tell; this same truth, is a naked, and open day-light, that doth not
show the masks, and mummeries, and triumphs, of the world, half so stately and
daintily as candle-lights.
(1) Cf. Ralegh: The
Lie
f)
Truth
may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will
not rise to the price of a diamond, or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied
lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if
there were taken out of men's minds, vain opinions, flattering hopes, false
valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the
minds, of a number of men, poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and
indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?
(1) Lies afford
pleasure and protection—give examples
g)
One
of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy vinum doemonum, because it
filleth the imagination; and yet, it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is
not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in, and
settleth in it, that doth the hurt; such as we spake of before.
(1) Literary lies are
ok; just surface
(2) Turning point
h)
But,
howsoever these things are thus in men's depraved judgments, and affections,
yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth,
which is the love-making, or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the
presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the
sovereign good of human nature.
(1) Three part
analysis: inquiry=lovemaking; knowledge and belief
i)
The
first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the sense;
the last, was the light of reason; and his sabbath work ever since, is the
illumination of his Spirit. First he breathed light, upon the face of the
matter or chaos; then he breathed light, into the face of man; and still he
breatheth and inspireth light, into the face of his chosen.
(1) Biblical appeal
j)
The
poet, that beautified the sect, that was otherwise inferior to the rest, saith
yet excellently well: It is a pleasure, to stand upon the shore, and to see
ships tossed upon the sea; a pleasure, to stand in the window of a castle, and
to see a battle, and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable
to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not to be commanded,
and where the air is always clear and serene), and to see the errors, and
wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below; so always that this
prospect be with pity, and not with swelling, or pride. Certainly, it is heaven
upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn
upon the poles of truth.
(1) The pleasure of
truth arising from perceiving falsehoods of others—counter to what
preceded
k)
To
pass from theological, and philosophical truth, to the truth of civil business;
it will be acknowledged, even by those that practise it not, that clear, and
round dealing, is the honor of man's nature; and that mixture of falsehoods, is
like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the
better, but it embaseth it.
(1) Truth in business
l)
For these winding, and crooked courses,
are the goings of the serpent; which goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon
the feet. There is no vice, that doth so cover a man with shame, as to be found
false and perfidious.
(1) People hate liars
m)
And
therefore Montaigne saith prettily, when he inquired the reason, why the word
of the lie should be such a disgrace, and such an odious charge? Saith he, If
it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave
towards God, and a coward towards men. For a lie faces God, and shrinks from
man.
(1)
Brain teaser; illumination—symmetry and paradox
n)
Surely
the wickedness of falsehood, and breach of faith, cannot possibly be so highly
expressed, as in that it shall be the last peal, to call the judgments of God
upon the generations of men; it being foretold, that when Christ cometh, he
shall not find faith upon the earth.
(1)
Apocalyptic conclusion; return to Christ
(2)
Circle around to beginning
(3)
Emphasis on the power and difficulty of knowledge; research;
the scientific endeavor; the rewardsÉ
