No More Learning

So again, a man's person hath many
proper relations which he cannot put off. A man cannot speak
to his son but as a father; to his wife but as a husband; to his
enemy but upon terms: whereas a friend may speak as the case
requires, and not as it sorteth with the person: but to enumerate
these things were endless; I have given the rule, where a man
cannot fitly play his own part, if he have not a friend he may
quit the stage.
DEFECTS OF THE UNIVERSITIES
From The Advancement of Learning' (Book ii. )
A
MONGST SO many great foundations of colleges in Europe, I
find it strange that they are all dedicated to professions, and
none left free to arts and sciences at large.
For if men
judge that learning should be referred to action, they judge well:
but in this they fall into the error described in the ancient
fable, in which the other parts of the body did suppose the
stomach had been idle, because it neither performed the office of
motion, as the limbs do, nor of sense, as the head doth; but yet
notwithstanding it is the stomach that digesteth and distributeth
to all the rest. So if any man think philosophy and universality
to be idle studies, he doth not consider that all professions are
from thence served and supplied. And this I take to be a great
cause that hath hindered the progression of learning, because
these fundamental knowledges have been studied but in passage.
For if you will have a tree bear more fruit than it hath used to
do, it is not anything you can do to the boughs, but it is the
stirring of the earth and putting new mold about the roots that
must work it. Neither is it to be forgotten, that this dedicating
of foundations and dotations to professory learning hath not only
had a malign aspect and influence upon the growth of sciences,
but hath also been prejudicial to States and governments. For
hence it proceedeth that princes find a solitude in regard of able
men to serve them in causes of estate, because there is no edu-
cation collegiate which is free; where such as were so disposed
mought give themselves to histories, modern languages, books of


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1184
FRANCIS BACON
policy and civil discourse, and other the like enablements unto
service of estate.
And because founders of colleges do plant, and founders of
lectures do water, it followeth well in order to speak of the
defect which is in public lectures; namely, in the smallness and
meanness of the salary or reward which in most places is
assigned unto them; whether they be lectures of arts, or of
professions For it is necessary to the progression of sciences
that readers be of the most able and sufficient men; as those
which are ordained for generating and propagating of sciences,
and not for transitory use. This cannot be, except their con-
dition and endowment be such as may content the ablest man
to appropriate his whole labor and continue his whole age in
that function and attendance; and therefore must have a propor-
tion answerable to that mediocrity or competency of advance-
ment, which may be expected from a profession or the practice
of a profession. So as, if you will have sciences flourish, you
must observe David's military law, which was, "That those which
staid with the carriage should have equal part with those which
were in the action"; else will the carriages be ill attended. So
readers in sciences are indeed the guardians of the stores and
provisions of sciences whence men in active courses are fur-
nished, and therefore ought to have equal entertainment with
them; otherwise if the fathers in sciences be of the weakest sort
or be ill maintained,
"Et patrum invalidi referent jejunia nati:"
[Weakness of parents will show in feebleness of offspring. ]
Another defect I note, wherein I shall need some alchemist
to help me, who call upon men to sell their books and to
build furnaces; quitting and forsaking Minerva and the Muses
as barren virgins, and relying upon Vulcan. But certain it is,
that unto the deep, fruitful, and operative study of many sci-
ences, specially natural philosophy and physic, books be not only
the instrumentals; wherein also the beneficence of men hath not
been altogether wanting. For we see spheres, globes, astro-
labes, maps, and the like, have been provided as appurtenances to
astronomy and cosmography, as well as books. We see likewise
that some places instituted for physic have annexed the commod-
ity of gardens for simples of all sorts, and do likewise command
the use of dead bodies for anatomies. But these do respect


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FRANCIS BACON
1185
but a few things. In general, there will hardly be any main
proficience in the disclosing of nature, except there be some
allowance for expenses about experiments; whether they be
experiments appertaining to Vulcanus or Dædalus, furnace or
engine, or any other kind. And therefore, as secretaries and
spials of princes and states bring in bills for intelligence, so you
must allow the spials and intelligencers of nature to bring in
their bills; or else you shall be ill advertised.
And if Alexander made such a liberal assignation to Aris-
totle of treasure for the allowance of hunters, fowlers, fishers,
and the like, that he mought compile an history of nature, much
better do they deserve it that travail in arts of nature.
Another defect which I note, is an intermission or neglect
in those which are governors in universities of consultation,
and in princes or superior persons of visitation; to enter into
account and consideration, whether the readings, exercises, and
other customs appertaining unto learning, anciently begun and
since continued, be well instituted or no; and thereupon to ground
an amendment or reformation in that which shall be found in-
convenient. For it is one of your Majesty's own most wise and
princely maxims, "that in all usages and precedents, the times
be considered wherein they first began; which if they were
weak or ignorant, it derogateth from the authority of the usage,
and leaveth it for suspect. " And therefore inasmuch as most
of the usages and orders of the universities were derived from
more obscure times, it is the more requisite they be re-examined.
In this kind I will give an instance or two, for example's sake,
of things that are the most obvious and familiar. The one is a
matter, which, though it be ancient and general, yet I hold to be
an error; which is, that scholars in universities come too soon
and too unripe to logic and rhetoric, arts fitter for graduates
than children and novices. For these two, rightly taken, are the
gravest of sciences, being the arts of arts; the one for judg-
ment, the other for ornament. And they be the rules and
directions how to set forth and dispose matter: and therefore
for minds empty and unfraught with matter, and which have
not gathered that which Cicero calleth sylva and supellex, stuff
and variety, to begin with those arts (as if one should learn to
weigh or to measure or to paint the wind) doth work but this
effect, that the wisdom of those arts, which is great and uni-
versal, is almost made contemptible, and is degenerate into
11-75


## p. 1186 (#612) ###########################################

1186
FRANCIS BACON
childish sophistry and ridiculous affectation. And further, the
untimely learning of them hath drawn on by consequence the
superficial and unprofitable teaching and writing of them, as
fitteth indeed to the capacity of children. Another is a lack I
find in the exercises used in the universities, which do make
too great a divorce between invention and memory. For their
speeches are either premeditate, in verbis conceptis, where noth-
ing is left to invention, or merely extemporal, where little is left
to memory; whereas in life and action there is least use of
either of these, but rather of intermixtures of premeditation and
invention, notes and memory. So as the exercise fitteth not the
practice, nor the image the life; and it is ever a true rule in
exercises, that they be framed as near as may be to the life of
practice; for otherwise they do pervert the motions and faculties
of the mind, and not prepare them. The truth whereof is not
obscure, when scholars come to the practices of professions, or
other actions of civil life; which when they set into, this want
is soon found by themselves, and sooner by others. But this
part, touching the amendment of the institutions and orders of
universities, I will conclude with the clause of Cæsar's letter to
Oppius and Balbus, "Hoc quem admodum fieri possit, nonnulla
mihi in mentem veniunt, et multa reperiri possunt: de iis rebus
rogo vos ut cogitationem suscipiatis. " [How this may be done,
some ways come to my mind and many may be devised; I ask
you to take these things into consideration. ]
Another defect which I note ascendeth a little higher than
the precedent. For as the proficience of learning consisteth much
in the orders and institutions of universities in the same States
and kingdoms, so it would be yet more advanced, if there were
more intelligence mutual between the universities of Europe
than now there is. We see there be many orders and founda-
tions, which though they be divided under several sovereignties
and territories, yet they take themselves to have a kind of con-
tract, fraternity, and correspondence one with the other, insomuch
as they have Provincials and Generals. And surely as nature
createth brotherhood in families, and arts mechanical contract
brotherhoods in communalties, and the anointment of God super-
induceth a brotherhood in kings and bishops; so in like manner
there cannot but be a fraternity in learning and illumination,
relating to that paternity which is attributed to God, who is
called the Father of illuminations or lights.


## p. 1187 (#613) ###########################################

FRANCIS BACON
1187
The last defect which I will note is, that there hath not been,
or very rarely been, any public designation of writers or in-
quirers concerning such parts of knowledge as may appear not
to have been already sufficiently labored or undertaken; unto
which point it is an inducement to enter into a view and exam-
ination what parts of learning have been prosecuted, and what
omitted. For the opinion of plenty is amongst the causes of
want, and the great quantity of books maketh a show rather of
superfluity than lack; which surcharge nevertheless is not to be
remedied by making no more books, but by making more good
books, which, as the serpent of Moses, mought devour the ser-
pents of the enchanters.
The removing of all the defects formerly enumerated, except
the last, and of the active part also of the last (which is the desig-
nation of writers), are opera basilica [kings' works]; towards which
the endeavors of a private man may be but as an image in a
cross-way, that may point at the way, but cannot go it. But the
inducing part of the latter (which is the survey of learning) may
be set forward by private travail. Wherefore I will now attempt
to make a general and faithful perambulation of learning, with an
inquiry what parts thereof lie fresh and waste, and not improved
and converted by the industry of man; to the end that such a
plot made and recorded to memory, may both minister light to
any public designation, and also serve to excite voluntary en-
deavors. Wherein nevertheless my purpose is at this time to
note only omissions and deficiencies, and not to make any redar-
gution of errors or incomplete prosecutions. For it is one thing
to set forth what ground lieth unmanured, and another thing
to correct ill husbandry in that which is manured.
In the handling and undertaking of which work I am not
ignorant what it is that I do now move and attempt, nor insen-
sible of mine own weakness to sustain my purpose. But my hope
is, that if my extreme love to learning carry me too far, I may
obtain the excuse of affection; for that "it is not granted to man
to love and to be wise. " But I know well I can use no other lib-
erty of judgment than I must leave to others; and I, for my
part, shall be indifferently glad either to perform myself, or accept
from another, that duty of humanity, "Nam qui erranti comiter
monstrat viam," etc. [To kindly show the wanderer the path. ]
I do foresee likewise that of those things which I shall enter
and register as deficiencies and omissions, many will conceive


## p. 1188 (#614) ###########################################

1188
FRANCIS BACON
and censure that some of them are already done and extant;
others to be but curiosities, and things of no great use; and
others to be of too great difficulty and almost impossibility to be
compassed and effected. But for the two first, I refer myself to
the particulars For the last, touching impossibility, I take it
those things are to be held possible which may be done by some
person, though not by every one; and which may be done by
many, though not by any one; and which may be done in the
succession of ages, though not within the hour-glass of one man's
life; and which may be done by public designation, though not
by private endeavor. But notwithstanding, if any man will take
to himself rather that of Solomon, "Dicit piger, Leo est in via"
[the sluggard says there is a lion in the path], than that of
Virgil, "Possunt quia posse videntur" [they can, because they
think they can], I shall be content that my labors be esteemed
but as the better sort of wishes. for as it asketh some knowledge
to demand a question not impertinent, so it requireth some sense
to make a wish not absurd.
TO MY LORD TREASURER BURGHLEY
From Letters and Life,' by James Spedding
My Lord:
WITH
ITH as much confidence as mine own honest and faithful
devotion unto your service and your honorable corre-
spondence unto me and my poor estate can breed in a
man, do I commend myself unto your Lordship. I wax now
somewhat ancient; one and thirty years is a great deal of sand
in the hour-glass. My health, I thank God, I find confirmed;
and I do not fear that action shall impair it, because I account
my ordinary course of study and meditation to be more painful
than most parts of action are. I ever bare a mind (in some mid-
dle place that I could discharge) to serve her Majesty; not as
a man born under Sol, that loveth honor; nor under Jupiter,
that loveth business (for the contemplative planet carrieth me
away wholly); but as a man born under an excellent Sovereign,
that deserveth the dedication of all men's abilities. Besides, I do
not find in myself so much self-love, but that the greater parts
of my thoughts are to deserve well (if I were able) of my
friends, and namely of your Lordship; who being the Atlas of


## p. 1189 (#615) ###########################################

FRANCIS BACON
1189
this commonwealth, the honor of my house, and the second
founder of my poor estate, I am tied by all duties, both of a
good patriot and of an unworthy kinsman, and of an obliged
servant, to employ whatsoever I am to do you service. Again,
the meanness of my estate does somewhat move me; for though
I cannot excuse myself that I am either prodigal or slothful, yet
my health is not to spend, nor my course to get. Lastly, I con-
fess that I have as vast contemplative ends as I have moderate
civil ends: for I have taken all knowledge to be my province;
and if I could purge it of two sorts of rovers, whereof the one
with frivolous disputations, confutations, and verbosities, the other
with blind experiments and auricular traditions and impostures,
hath committed so many spoils, I hope I should bring in indus-
trious observations, grounded conclusions, and profitable inven-
tions and discoveries; the best state of that province. This,
whether it be curiosity, or vain glory, or nature, or (if one take
it favorably) philanthropia, is so fixed in my mind as it cannot
be removed. And I do easily see, that place of any reasonable
countenance doth bring commandment of more wits than of a
man's own; which is the thing I greatly affect. And for your
Lordship, perhaps you shall not find more strength and less
encounter in any other. And if your Lordship shall find now, or
at any time, that I do seek or affect any place whereunto any
that is nearer unto your Lordship shall be concurrent, say then
that I am a most dishonest man. And if your Lordship will not
carry me on, I will not do as Anaxagoras did, who reduced him-
self with contemplation unto voluntary poverty: but this I will
do; I will sell the inheritance that I have, and purchase some
lease of quick revenue, or some office of gain that shall be exe-
cuted by deputy, and so give over all care of service, and become
some sorry book-maker, or a true pioneer in that mine of truth,
which (he said) lay so deep. This which I have writ unto your
Lordship is rather thoughts than words, being set down without
all art, disguising, or reservation. Wherein I have done honor
both to your Lordship's wisdom, in judging that that will be best
believed of your Lordship which is truest, and to your Lordship's
good nature, in retaining nothing from you. And even so I
wish your Lordship all happiness, and to myself means and
occasion to be added to my faithful desire to do you service.
From my lodging at Gray's Inn.


## p. 1190 (#616) ###########################################

1190
FRANCIS BACON
IN PRAISE OF KNOWLEDGE
From Letters and Life,' by James Spedding
were the best celebration of that which I mean to
commend; for who would not use silence, where silence is
not made, and what crier can make silence in such a noise
and tumult of vain and popular opinions?
My praise shall be dedicated to the mind itself. The mind is
the man and the knowledge of the mind. A man is but what
he knoweth. The mind itself is but an accident to knowledge;
for knowledge is a double of that which is; the truth of being
and the truth of knowing is all one.
STL
ILENCE
Are not the pleasures of the affections greater than the
pleasures of the senses? And are not the pleasures of the intel-
lect greater than the pleasures of the affections? Is not knowl-
edge a true and only natural pleasure, whereof there is no
satiety? Is it not knowledge that doth alone clear the mind of
all perturbation? How many things are there which we imagine
not? How many things do we esteem and value otherwise than
they are! This ill-proportioned estimation, these vain imagina-
tions, these be the clouds of error that turn into the storms of
perturbation. Is there any such happiness as for a man's mind.
to be raised above the confusion of things, where he may have
the prospect of the order of nature and the error of men?
But is this a vein only of delight, and not of discovery? of
contentment, and not of benefit? Shall he not as well discern
the riches of nature's warehouse, as the benefit of her shop? Is
truth ever barren? Shall he not be able thereby to produce
worthy effects, and to endow the life of man with infinite com-
modities?
But shall I make this garland to be put upon a wrong head?
Would anybody believe me, if I should verify this upon the
knowledge that is now in use? Are we the richer by one poor
invention, by reason of all the learning that hath been these
many hundred years? The industry of artificers maketh some
small improvement of things invented; and chance sometimes in
experimenting maketh us to stumble upon somewhat which is
new; but all the disputation of the learned never brought to
light one effect of nature before unknown. When things are
known and found out, then they can descant upon them, they


## p. 1191 (#617) ###########################################

FRANCIS BACON
"
1191
can knit them into certain causes, they can reduce them to their
principles. If any instance of experience stand against them,
they can range it in order by some distinctions. But all this is
but a web of the wit, it can work nothing. I do not doubt but
that common notions, which we call reason, and the knitting of
them together, which we call logic, are the art of reason and
studies. But they rather cast obscurity than gain light to the
contemplation of nature. All the philosophy of nature which is
now received, is either the philosophy of the Grecians, or that
other of the Alchemists. That of the Grecians hath the founda-
tions in words, in ostentation, in confutation, in sects, in schools,
in disputations. The Grecians were (as one of themselves saith),
"you Grecians, ever children. " They knew little antiquity; they
knew (except fables) not much above five hundred years before
themselves; they knew but a small portion of the world. That
of the Alchemists hath the foundation in imposture, in auricular
traditions and obscurity; it was catching hold of religion, but
the principle of it is, "Populus vult decipi. " So that I know no
great difference between these great philosophies, but that the
one is a loud-crying folly, and the other is a whispering folly.
The one is gathered out of a few vulgar observations, and the
other out of a few experiments of a furnace. The one never
faileth to multiply words, and the other ever faileth to multiply
gold. Who would not smile at Aristotle, when he admireth the
eternity and invariableness of the heavens, as there were not
the like in the bowels of the earth? Those be the confines and
borders of these two kingdoms, where the continual alteration
and incursion are. The superficies and upper parts of the earth
are full of varieties. The superficies and lower part of the
heavens (which we call the middle region of the air) is full of
variety. There is much spirit in the one part that cannot be
brought into mass. There is much massy body in the other
place that cannot be refined to spirit. The common air is as
the waste ground between the borders. Who would not smile
at the astronomers? I mean not these new carmen which drive
the earth about, but the ancient astronomers, which feign the
moon to be the swiftest of all planets in motion, and the rest in
order, the higher the slower; and so are compelled to imagine a
double motion; whereas how evident is it, that that which they
call a contrary motion is but an abatement of motion. The
fixed stars overgo Saturn, and so in them and the rest all is


## p. 1192 (#618) ###########################################

FRANCIS BACON
1192
but one motion, and the nearer the earth the slower; a motion
also whereof air and water do participate, though much inter-
rupted.
But why do I in a conference of pleasure enter into these
great matters, in sort that pretending to know much, I should
forget what is seasonable? Pardon me, it was because all
[other] things may be endowed and adorned with speeches, but
knowledge itself is more beautiful than any apparel of words
that can be put upon it.
And let not me seem arrogant, without respect to these great
reputed authors. Let me so give every man his due, as I give
Time his due, which is to discover truth. Many of these men
had greater wits, far above mine own, and so are many in the
universities of Europe at this day. But alas, they learn nothing
there but to believe: first to believe that others know that which
they know not; and after [that] themselves know that which
they know not. But indeed facility to believe, impatience to
doubt, temerity to answer, glory to know, doubt to contradict,
end to gain, sloth to search, seeking things in words, resting in
part of nature; these, and the like, have been the things which
have forbidden the happy match between the mind of man and
the nature of things, and in place thereof have married it to
vain notions and blind experiments. And what the posterity and
issue of so honorable a match may be, it is not hard to consider.
Printing, a gross invention; artillery, a thing that lay not far
out of the way; the needle, a thing partly known before; what a
change have these three made in the world in these times; the
one in state of learning, the other in state of the war, the third
in the state of treasure, commodities, and navigation. And those,
I say, were but stumbled upon and lighted upon by chance.
Therefore, no doubt the sovereignty of man lieth hid in knowl-
edge; wherein many things are reserved, which kings with their
treasure cannot buy, nor with their force command; their spials
and intelligencers can give no news of them, their seamen and
discoverers cannot sail where they grow. Now we govern nature
in opinions, but we are thrall unto her in necessity; but if we
would be led by her in invention, we should command her in
action.


## p. 1193 (#619) ###########################################

FRANCIS BACON,
1193
TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR, TOUCHING THE HISTORY OF
BRITAIN
From Letters and Life,' by James Spedding
It may please your good Lordship:
So
OME late act of his Majesty, referred to some former speech
which I have heard from your Lordship, bred in me a great
desire, and by strength of desire a boldness to make an humble
proposition to your Lordship, such as in me can be no better
than a wish: but if your Lordship should apprehend it, may
take some good and worthy effect. The act I speak of, is the
order given by his Majesty, as I understand, for the erection of
a tomb or monument for our late sovereign Lady Queen Eliza-
beth: wherein I may note much, but this at this time; that as
her Majesty did always right to his Highness's hopes, so his Maj-
esty doth in all things right to her memory; a very just and
princely retribution. But from this occasion, by a very easy
ascent, I passed furder, being put in mind, by this Represent-
ative of her person, of the more true and more firm Represent-
ative, which is of her life and government. For as Statuaes and
Pictures are dumb histories, so histories are speaking Pictures.
Wherein if my affection be not too great, or my reading too
small, I am of this opinion, that if Plutarch were alive to write
lives by parallels, it would trouble him for virtue and fortune
both to find for her a parallel amongst women.
And though
she was of the passive sex, yet her government was so active,
as, in my simple opinion, it made more impression upon the
several states of Europe, than it received from thence. But I
confess unto your Lordship I could not stay here, but went
a little furder into the consideration of the times which have
passed since King Henry the 8th; wherein I find the strangest
variety that in like number of successions of any hereditary mon-
archy hath ever been known. The reign of a child; the offer of
an usurpation (though it were but as a Diary Ague); the reign
of a lady married to a foreign Prince; and the reign of a lady
solitary and unmarried. So that as it cometh to pass in massive
bodies, that they have certain trepidations and waverings before
they fix and settle; so it seemeth that by the providence of God
this monarchy, before it was to settle in his Majesty and his gen-
erations (in which I hope it is now established for ever), it had


## p. 1194 (#620) ###########################################

FRANCIS BACON
1194
these prelusive changes in these barren princes. Neither could
I contain myself here (as it is easier to produce than to stay a
wish), but calling to remembrance the unworthiness of the his-
tory of England (in the main continuance thereof), and the par-
tiality and obliquity of that of Scotland, in the latest and largest
author that I have seen: I conceived it would be honor for his
Majesty, and a work very memorable, if this island of Great
Britain, as it is now joined in Monarchy for the ages to come,
so were joined in History for the times past; and that one just
and complete History were compiled of both nations. And if
any man think it may refresh the memory of former discords, he
may satisfy himself with the verse, "olim hæc meminisse juva-
bit:" for the case being now altered, it is matter of comfort
and gratulation to remember former troubles.
Thus much, if it may please your Lordship, was in the optat-
ive mood. It is true that I did look a little in the potential;
wherein the hope which I conceived was grounded upon three
observations. The first, of the times, which do flourish in learn-
ing, both of art and language; which giveth hope not only that
it may be done, but that it may be well done. For when good
things are undertaken in ill times, it turneth but to loss; as in
this very particular we have a fresh example of Polydore Vergile,
who being designed to write the English History by K. Henry
the 8th (a strange choice to chuse a stranger), and for his bet-
ter instruction having obtained into his hands many registers and
memorials out of the monasteries, did indeed deface and suppress
better things than those he did collect and reduce. Secondly, I
do see that which all the world seeth in his Majesty, both a
wonderful judgment in learning and a singular affection towards
learning, and the works of true honor which are of the mind and
not of the hand. For there cannot be the like honor sought in
the building of galleries, or the planting of elms along highways,
and the like manufactures, things rather of magnificence than of
magnanimity, as there is in the uniting of states, pacifying of
controversies, nourishing and augmenting of learning and arts,
and the particular actions appertaining unto these; of which kind
Cicero judged truly, when he said to Cæsar, "Quantum operibus
tuis detrahet vetustas, tantum addet laudibus. " And lastly, I
called to mind, that your Lordship at sometimes hath been
pleased to express unto me a great desire, that something of this
nature should be performed; answerably indeed to your other


## p. 1195 (#621) ###########################################

FRANCIS BACON
1195
noble and worthy courses and actions, wherein your Lordship
sheweth yourself not only an excellent Chancellor and Counselor,
but also an exceeding favorer and fosterer of all good learning
and virtue, both in men and matters, persons and actions: joining
and adding unto the great services towards his Majesty, which
have, in small compass of time, been accumulated upon your
Lordship, many other deservings both of the Church and Com-
monwealth and particulars; so as the opinion of so great and
wise a man doth seem unto me a good warrant both of the
possibility and worth of this matter. But all this while I assure
myself, I cannot be mistaken by your Lordship, as if I sought
an office or employment for myself. For no man knoweth better
than your Lordship, that (if there were in me any faculty there-
unto, as I am most unable), yet neither my fortune nor profes-
sion would permit it. But because there be so many good painters
both for hand and colors, it needeth but encouragement and
instructions to give life and light unto it.
So in all humbleness I conclude my presenting to your good
Lordship this wish; that if it perish it is but a loss of that which
is not. And thus craving pardon that I have taken so much
time from your Lordship, I always remain
Your Lps. very humbly and much bounden
FR. BACON.
GRAY'S INN, this 2d of April, 1605.
TO VILLIERS ON HIS PATENT AS VISCOUNT
From 'Letters and Life,' by James Spedding
Sir:
I
HAVE sent you now your patent of creation of Lord Blechly of
Blechly, and of Viscount Villiers. Blechly is your own, and
I like the sound of the name better than Whaddon; but the
name will be hid, for you will be called Viscount Villiers. I
have put them both in a patent, after the manner of the patents
of Earls where baronies are joined; but the chief reason was,
because I would avoid double prefaces which had not been fit;
nevertheless the ceremony of robing and otherwise must be
double.
And now, because I am in the country, I will send you some
of my country fruits; which with me. are good meditations;
which when I am in the city are choked with business.


## p. 1196 (#622) ###########################################

1196
FRANCIS BACON
After that the King shall have watered your new dignities
with his bounty of the lands which he intends you, and that
some other things concerning your means which are now likewise
in intention shall be settled upon you; I do not see but you
may think your private fortunes established; and, therefore, it is
now time that you should refer your actions chiefly to the good
of your sovereign and your country. It is the life of an ox or
beast always to eat, and never to exercise; but men are born
(and especially Christian men), not to cram in their fortunes,
but to exercise their virtues; and yet the other hath been the
unworthy, and (thanks be to God) sometimes the unlucky humor
of great persons in our times. Neither will your further fortune
be the further off: for assure yourself that fortune is of a
woman's nature, that will sooner follow you by slighting than
by too much wooing. And in this dedication of yourself to the
public, I recommend unto you principally that which I think
was never done since I was born; and which not done hath bred
almost a wilderness and solitude in the King's service; which is,
that you countenance, and encourage, and advance able men and
virtuous men, and meriting men in all kinds, degrees, and pro-
fessions. For in the time of the Cecils, the father and the son,
able men were by design and of purpose suppressed; and though
of late choice goeth better both in church and commonwealth,
yet money, and turn-serving, and cunning canvasses, and impor-
tunity prevail too much. And in places of moment rather make
able and honest men yours, than advance those that are other-
wise because they are yours. As for cunning and corrupt men,
you must (I know) sometimes use them; but keep them at a dis-
tance; and let it appear that you make use of them, rather than
that they lead you. Above all, depend wholly (next to God)
upon the King; and be ruled (as hitherto you have been) by his
instructions; for that is best for yourself. For the King's care
and thoughts concerning you are according to the thoughts of a
great King; whereas your thoughts concerning yourself are and
ought to be according to the thoughts of a modest man. But
let me not weary you. The sum is that you think goodness the
best part of greatness; and that you remember whence your ris-
ing comes, and make return accordingly.
God ever keep you.
GORHAMBURY, August 12th, 1616


## p. 1197 (#623) ###########################################

FRANCIS BACON
CHARGE TO JUSTICE HUTTON
From Letters and Life,' by James Spedding
1197
Mr. Serjeant Hutton:
HE King's most excellent Majesty, being duly informed of
your learning, integrity, discretion, experience, means, and
reputation in your country, hath thought fit not to leave
you these talents to be employed upon yourself only, but to call
you to serve himself and his people, in the place of one of his
Justices of the court of common pleas.
The court where you are to serve, is the local centre and
heart of the laws of this realm. Here the subject hath his
assurance by fines and recoveries. Here he hath his fixed and
invariable remedies by præcipes and writs of right. Here Justice
opens not by a by-gate of privilege, but by the great gate of the
King's original writs out of the Chancery.
Here issues process
of outlawry; if men will not answer law in this centre of law,
they shall be cast out of the circle of law. And therefore it is
proper for you by all means with your wisdom and fortitude to
maintain the laws of the realm. Wherein, nevertheless, I would
not have you head-strong, but heart-strong; and to weigh and
remember with yourself, that the twelve Judges of the realm are
as the twelve lions under Solomon's throne; they must be lions,
but yet lions, under the throne; they must shew their stoutness
in elevating and bearing up the throne.
To represent unto you the lines and portraitures of a good
judge:-The first is, That you should draw your learning out of
your books, not out of your brain.
2. That you should mix well the freedom of your own
opinion with the reverence of the opinion of your fellows.
3.
That you should continue the studying of your books, and
not to spend on upon the old stock.
4. That you should fear no man's face, and yet not turn
stoutness into bravery.
5. That you should be truly impartial, and not so as men
may see affection through fine carriage.
6. That you be a light to jurors to open their eyes, but not
a guide to lead them by the noses.
7. That you affect not the opinion of pregnancy and expe-
dition by an impatient and catching hearing of the counselors at
the bar.


## p. 1198 (#624) ###########################################

1198
FRANCIS BACON
8. That your speech be with gravity, as one of the sages of
the law; and not talkative, nor with impertinent flying out to
show learning.
9. That your hands, and the hands of your hands (I mean
those about you), be clean, and uncorrupt from gifts, from
meddling in titles, and from serving of turns, be they of great
ones or small ones.
10.
That you contain the jurisdiction of the court within the
ancient merestones, without removing the mark.
II. Lastly, That you carry such a hand over your ministers
and clerks, as that they may rather be in awe of you, than pre-
sume upon you.
These and the like points of the duty of a Judge, I forbear
to enlarge; for the longer I have lived with you, the shorter
shall my speech be to you; knowing that you come so furnished.
and prepared with these good virtues, as whatsoever I shall say
cannot be new unto you. And therefore I will say no more unto
you at this time, but deliver you your patent.
A PRAYER, OR PSALM
From Letters and Life,' by James Spedding
M
OST gracious Lord God, my merciful Father, from my youth
up, my Creator, my Redeemer, my Comforter. Thou (O
Lord) soundest and searchest the depths and secrets of all
hearts; thou knowledgest the upright of heart, thou judgest the
hypocrite, thou ponderest men's thoughts and doings as in a
balance, thou measurest their intentions as with a line, vanity
and crooked ways cannot be hid from thee.
Remember (O Lord) how thy servant hath walked before
thee: remember what I have first sought, and what hath been
principal in mine intentions. I have loved thy assemblies, I
have mourned for the divisions of thy Church, I have delighted
in the brightness of thy sanctuary. This vine which thy right
hand hath planted in this nation, I have ever prayed unto thee
that it might have the first and the latter rain; and that it might
stretch her branches to the seas and to the floods. The state
and bread of the poor and oppressed have been precious in mine
eyes: I have hated all cruelty and hardness of heart: I have
(though in a despised weed) procured the good of all men. If


## p. 1199 (#625) ###########################################

FRANCIS BACON
1199
any have been mine enemies, I thought not of them; neither
hath the sun almost set upon my displeasure; but I have been
as a dove, free from superfluity of maliciousness. Thy creatures
have been my books, but thy Scriptures much more. I have
sought thee in the courts, fields, and gardens, but I have found.
thee in thy temples.
Thousands have been my sins, and ten thousand my trans-
gressions; but thy sanctifications have remained with me, and
my heart, through thy grace, hath been an unquenched coal
upon thy altar. O Lord, my strength, I have since my youth
met with thee in all my ways, by thy fatherly compassions, by
thy comfortable chastisements, and by thy most visible provi-
dence. As thy favors have increased upon me, so have thy cor-
rections; so as thou hast been alway near me, O Lord; and
ever as my worldly blessings were exalted, so secret darts from
thee have pierced me; and when I have ascended before men, I
have descended in humiliation before thee.
And now when I thought most of peace and honor, thy hand
is heavy upon me, and hath humbled me, according to thy
former loving-kindness, keeping me still in thy fatherly school,
not as a bastard, but as a child. Just are thy judgments upon
me for my sins, which are more in number than the sands of
the sea, but have no proportion to thy mercies; for what are the
sands of the sea, to the sea, earth, heavens? and all these are
nothing to thy mercies.
Besides my innumerable sins, I confess before thee, that I
am debtor to thee for the gracious talent of thy gifts and graces
which I have neither put into a napkin, nor put it (as I ought)
to exchangers, where it might have made best profit; but mis-
spent it in things for which I was least fit; so as I may truly
say, my soul hath been a stranger in the course of my pilgrim-
age. Be merciful into me (O Lord) for my Saviour's sake, and
receive me unto thy bosom, or guide me in thy ways.


## p. 1200 (#626) ###########################################

I 200
FRANCIS BACON
FROM THE APOPHTHEGMS >
MY
y Lo. of Essex, at the succor of Rhoan, made twenty-four
knights, which at that time was a great matter. Divers
(7. ) of those gentlemen were of weak and small means; which
when Queen Elizabeth heard, she said, "My Lo. mought have
done well to have built his alms-house before he made his
knights. "
21. Many men, especially such as affect gravity, have a
manner after other men's speech to shake their heads. Sir
Lionel Cranfield would say, "That it was as men shake a bottle,
to see if there was any wit in their head or no. "
33. Bias was sailing, and there fell out a great tempest, and
the mariners, that were wicked and dissolute fellows, called upon
the gods; but Bias said to them, "Peace, let them not know ye
are here. "
42. There was a Bishop that was somewhat a delicate person,
and bathed twice a day. A friend of his said to him, "My lord,
why do you bathe twice a day? " The Bishop answered,
"Because I cannot conveniently bathe thrice. "
55. Queen Elizabeth was wont to say of her instructions to
great officers, "That they were like to garments, strait at the
first putting on, but did by and by wear loose enough. ”
64. Sir Henry Wotton used to say, "That critics are like
brushers of noblemen's clothes. "
Mr. Savill was asked by my lord of Essex his opinion
touching poets; who answered my lord, "He thought them the
best writers, next to those that write prose. "
85. One was saying, "That his great-grandfather and grand-
father and father died at sea. " Said another that heard him,
"And I were as you, I would never come at sea. " "Why, (saith
he) where did your great-grandfather and grandfather and father
die? " He answered, "Where but in their beds. " Saith the
other, "And I were as you, I would never come in bed. ”
97. Alonso of Arragon was wont to say, in commendation of
age, That age appeared to be best in four things: "Old wood
best to burn; old wine to drink; old friends to trust; and old
authors to read. "
119. One of the fathers saith, "That there is but this differ-
ence between the death of old men and young men: that old
men go to death, and death comes to young men. "


## p. 1201 (#627) ###########################################

FRANCIS BACON
12ΟΙ
TRANSLATION OF THE 137TH PSALM
From Works,' Vol. xiv.
WHE
HENAS we sat all sad and desolate,
By Babylon upon the river's side,
Eased from the tasks which in our captive state
We were enforced daily to abide,
Our harps we had brought with us to the field,
Some solace to our heavy souls to yield.
But soon we found we failed of our account,
For when our minds some freedom did obtain,
Straightways the memory of Sion Mount
Did cause afresh our wounds to bleed again;
So that with present gifts, and future fears,
Our eyes burst forth into a stream of tears.
As for our harps, since sorrow struck them dumb,
We hanged them on the willow-trees were near;
Yet did our cruel masters to us come,
Asking of us some Hebrew songs to hear:
Taunting us rather in our misery,
Than much delighting in our melody.
Alas (said we) who can once force or frame
His grieved and oppressèd heart to sing
The praises of Jehovah's glorious name,
In banishment, under a foreign king?
In Sion is his seat and dwelling-place,
Thence doth he shew the brightness of his face.
Hierusalem, where God his throne hath set,
Shall any hour absent thee from my mind?
Then let my right hand quite her skill forget,
Then let my voice and words no passage find;
Nay, if I do not thee prefer in all
That in the compass of my thoughts can fall.
Remember thou, O Lord, the cruel cry
Of Edom's children, which did ring and sound,
Inciting the Chaldean's cruelty,
"Down with it, down with it, even unto the ground. "
In that good day repay it unto them,
When thou shalt visit thy Hierusalem.
11-76


## p. 1202 (#628) ###########################################

1202
FRANCIS BACON
And thou, O Babylon, shalt have thy turn
By just revenge, and happy shall he be,
That thy proud walls and towers shall waste and burn,
And as thou didst by us, so do by thee.
Yea, happy he that takes thy children's bones,
And dasheth them against the pavement stones.
THE WORLD'S A BUBBLE
From Works, Vol. xiv.
THE
HE world's a bubble, and the life of man
less than a span;
In his conception wretched, from the womb
so to the tomb:
Curst from the cradle, and brought up to years
with cares and fears.
Who then to frail mortality shall trust,
But limns the water, or but writes in dust.
Yet since with sorrow here we live opprest,
what life is best?
Courts are but only superficial schools
to dandle fools.
The rural parts are turned into a den
of savage men.
And where's the city from all vice so free,
But may be termed the worst of all the three?
Domestic cares afflict the husband's bed,
or pains his head.
Those that live single take it for a curse,
or do things worse.
Some would have children; those that have them moan,
or wish them gone.
What is it then to have or have no wife,
But single thraldom, or a double strife?
Our own affections still at home to please
is a disease:
To cross the seas to any foreign soil
perils and toil.
Wars with their noise affright us: when they cease,
we are worse in peace.
What then remains, but that we still should cry
Not to be born, or being born to die.


## p. 1203 (#629) ###########################################

1203
WALTER BAGEHOT
(1826-1877)
BY FORREST MORGAN
M
ALTER BAGEHOT was born February 3d, 1826, at Langport,
Somersetshire, England; and died there March 24th, 1877.
He sprang on both sides from, and was reared in, a nest of
wealthy bankers and ardent Liberals, steeped in political history and
with London country houses where leaders of thought and politics
resorted; and his mother's brother-in-law was Dr. Prichard the eth-
nologist. This heredity, progressive by disposition and conservative
by trade, and this entourage, produced
naturally enough a mind at once rapid of
insight and cautious of judgment, devoted
almost equally to business action and intel-
lectual speculation, and on its speculative
side turned toward the fields of political
history and sociology.
WALTER BAGEHOT
But there were equally important ele-
ments not traceable. His freshness of men-
tal vision, the strikingly novel points of
view from which he looked at every sub-
ject, was marvelous even in a century so
fertile of varied independences: he com
plained that "the most galling of yokes is
the tyranny of your next-door neighbor,"
the obligation of thinking as he thinks. He had a keen, almost reck-
less wit and delicious buoyant humor, whose utterances never pall by
repetition; few authors so abound in tenaciously quotable phrases
and passages of humorous intellectuality. What is rarely found in
connection with much humor, he had a sensitive dreaminess of
nature, strongly poetic in feeling, whence resulted a large apprecia-
tion of the subtler classes of poetry; of which he was an acute and
sympathizing critic. As part of this temperament, he had a strong
bent toward mysticism,-in one essay he says flatly that "mysticism
is true," which gave him a rare insight into the religious nature
and some obscure problems of religious history; though he was too
cool, scientific, and humorous to be a great theologian.

Above all, he had that instinct of selective art, in felicity of words
and salience of ideas, which elevates writing into literature; which


## p. 1204 (#630) ###########################################

1204
WALTER BAGEHOT
long after a thought has merged its being and use in those of wider
scope, keeps it in separate remembrance and retains for its creator
his due of credit through the artistic charm of the shape he gave it.
The result of a mixture of traits popularly thought incompat-
ible, and usually so in reality, -a great relish for the driest business
facts and a creative literary gift, was absolutely unique. Bagehot
explains the general sterility of literature as a guide to life by the
fact that "so few people who can write know anything;" and began
a reform in his own person, by applying all his highest faculties -
the best not only of his thought but of his imagination and his liter-
ary skill to the theme of his daily work, banking and business affairs
and political economy. There have been many men of letters who
were excellent business men and hard bargainers, sometimes indeed
merchants or bankers, but they have held their literature as far as
possible off the plane of their bread-winning; they have not used it
to explain and decorate the latter and made that the motive of art.
Bagehot loved business not alone as the born trader loves it, for its
profit and its gratification of innate likings, - "business is really
pleasanter than pleasure, though it does not look so," he says in sub-
stance, but as an artist loves a picturesque situation or a journalist
a murder; it pleased his literary sense as material for analysis and
composition. He had in a high degree that union of the practical
and the musing faculties which in its (as yet) highest degree made
Shakespeare; but even Shakespeare did not write dramas on how to
make theatres pay, or sonnets on real-estate speculation.
Bagehot's career was determined, as usual, partly by character
and partly by circumstances. He graduated at London University in
1848, and studied for and was called to the bar; but his father
owned an interest in a rich old provincial bank and a good shipping
business, and instead of the law he joined in their conduct. He had
just before, however, passed a few months in France, including the
time of Louis Napoleon's coup d'état in December, 1851; and from
Paris he wrote to the London Inquirer (a Unitarian weekly) a re-
markable series of letters on that event and its immediate sequents,
defending the usurpation vigorously and outlining his political creed,
from whose main lines he swerved but little in after life. Waiving
the question whether the defense was valid, —and like all first-rate
minds, Bagehot is even more instructive when he is wrong than
when he is right, because the wrong is sure to be almost right and
the truth on its side neglected, the letters are full of fresh, acute,
and even profound ideas, sharp exposition of those primary objects
of government which demagogues and buncombe legislators ignore,
racy wit, sarcasm, and description (in one passage he rises for a
moment into really blood-stirring rhetoric), and proofs of his capacity
-
-


## p. 1205 (#631) ###########################################

WALTER BAGEHOT
1205
thus early for reducing the confused cross-currents of daily life to
the operation of great embracing laws. No other writing of a youth
of twenty-five on such subjects—or almost none-is worth remem-
bering at all for its matter; while this is perennially wholesome and
educative, as well as capital reading.
From this on he devoted most of his spare time to literature: that
he found so much spare time, and produced so much of a high grade
while winning respect as a business manager, proves the excellent
quality of his business brain. He was one of the editors of the Na-
tional Review, a very able and readable English quarterly, from its
foundation in 1854 to its death in 1863, and wrote for it twenty lit-
erary, biographical, and theological papers, which are among his best
titles to enduring remembrance, and are full of his choicest flavors,
his wealth of thought, fun, poetic sensitiveness, and deep religious
feeling of the needs of human nature. Previous to this, he had writ-
ten some good articles for the Prospective Review, and he wrote
some afterwards for the Fortnightly Review (including the series
afterwards gathered into 'Physics and Politics'), and other period-
icals.
But his chief industry and most peculiar work was determined by
his marriage in 1858 to the daughter of James Wilson, an ex-mer-
chant who had founded the Economist as a journal of trade, banking,
and investment, and made it prosperous and rather influential. Mr.
Wilson was engaging in politics, where he rose to high office and
would probably have ended in the Cabinet; but being sent to India
to regulate its finances, died there in 1860. Bagehot thereupon took
control of the paper, and was the paper until his death in 1877; and
the position he gave it was as unique as his own. On banking,
finance, taxation, and political economy in general his utterances had
such weight that Chancellors of the Exchequer consulted him as to
the revenues, and the London business world eagerly studied the
paper for guidance. But he went far beyond this, and made it an
unexampled force in politics and governmental science, personal to
himself. For the first time a great political thinker applied his mind
week by week to discussing the problems presented by passing poli-
tics, and expounding the drift and meaning of current events in his
nation and the others which bore closest on it, as France and
America. That he gained such a hearing was due not alone to his
immense ability, and to a style carefully modeled on the conversa-
tion of business men with each other, but to his cool moderation and
evident aloofness from party as party. He dissected each like a man
of science: party was to him a tool and not a religion. He gibed at
the Tories; but the Tories forgave him because he was half a Tory
at heart, he utterly distrusted popular instincts and was afraid of


## p. 1206 (#632) ###########################################

1206
WALTER BAGEHOT
popular ignorance. He was rarely warm for the actual measures of
the Liberals; but the Liberals knew that he intensely despised the
pig-headed obstructiveness of the typical Tory, and had no kinship
with the blind worshipers of the status quo. To natives and foreign-
ers alike for many years the paper was single and invaluable: in it
one could find set forth acutely and dispassionately the broad facts
and the real purport of all great legislative proposals, free from the
rant and mendacity, the fury and distortion, the prejudice and coun-
ter-prejudice of the party press.
An outgrowth of his treble position as banker, economic writer,
and general littérateur, was his charming book 'Lombard Street. '
Most writers know nothing about business, he sets forth, most busi-
ness men cannot write, therefore most writing about business is
either unreadable or untrue: he put all his literary gifts at its serv-
ice, and produced a book as instructive as a trade manual and more
delightful than most novels. Its luminous, easy, half-playful "busi-
ness talk" is irresistibly captivating. It is a description and analysis
of the London money market and its component parts,—the Bank of
England, the joint-stock banks, the private banks, and the bill-brok-
ers. It will live, however, as literature and as a picture, not as a
banker's guide; as the vividest outline of business London, of the
"great commerce" and the fabric of credit which is the basis of mod-
ern civilization and of which London is the centre, that the world
has ever known.
Previous to this, the most widely known of his works-'The Eng-
lish Constitution,' much used as a text-book- had made a new epoch
in political analysis, and placed him among the foremost thinkers
and writers of his time. Not only did it revolutionize the accepted
mode of viewing that governmental structure, but as a treatise on
government in general its novel types of classification are now
admitted commonplaces. Besides its main themes, the book is a
great store of thought and suggestion on government, society, and
human nature,- for as in all his works, he pours on his nominal sub-
ject a flood of illumination and analogy from the unlikeliest sources;
and a piece of eminently pleasurable reading from end to end. Its
basic novelty lay in what seems the most natural of inquiries, but
which in fact was left for Bagehot's original mind even to think of,
-the actual working of the governmental system in practice, as dis-
tinguished from legal theory. The result of this novel analysis was
startling: old powers and checks went to the rubbish heap, and a
wholly new set of machinery and even new springs of force and life
were substituted. He argued that the actual use of the English mon-
archy is not to do the work of government, but through its roots in
the past to gain popular loyalty and support for the real government.


## p. 1207 (#633) ###########################################

WALTER BAGEHOT
1207
which the masses would not obey if they realized its genuine nature;
that "it raises the army though it does not win the battle. " He
showed that the function of the House of Peers is not as a co-
ordinate power with the Commons (which is the real government), but
as a revising body and an index of the strength of popular feeling.
Constitutional governments he divides into Cabinet, where the people
can change the government at any time, and therefore follow its acts
and debates eagerly and instructedly; and Presidential, where they
can only change it at fixed terms, and are therefore apathetic and
ill-informed and care little for speeches which can effect nothing.
Just before 'Lombard Street' came his scientific masterpiece,
'Physics and Politics'; a work which does for human society what
the 'Origin of Species' does for organic life, expounding its method
of progress from very low if not the lowest forms to higher ones.
Indeed, one of its main lines is only a special application of Darwin's
"natural selection" to societies, noting the survival of the strongest
(which implies in the long run the best developed in all virtues that
make for social cohesion) through conflict; but the book is so much
more than that, in spite of its heavy debt to all scientific and institu-
tional research, that it remains a first-rate feat of original construct-
ive thought. It is the more striking from its almost ludicrous brevity
compared with the novelty, variety, and pregnancy of its ideas.
It is scarcely more than a pamphlet; one can read it through in
an evening: yet there is hardly any book which is a master-key to
so many historical locks, so useful a standard for referring scattered
sociological facts to, so clarifying to the mind in the study of early
history. The work is strewn with fertile and suggestive observations
from many branches of knowledge. Its leading idea of the needs and
difficulties of early societies is given in one of the citations.
The unfinished 'Economic Studies' are partially a re-survey of the
same ground on a more limited scale, and contain in addition a mass
of the nicest and shrewdest observations on modern trade and soci-
ety, full of truth and suggestiveness. All the other books printed
under his name are collections either from the Economist or from
outside publications.
As a thinker, Bagehot's leading positions may be roughly sum-
marized thus: in history, that reasoning from the present to the past
is generally wrong and frequently nonsense; in politics, that abstract
systems are foolish, that a government which does not benefit its sub-
jects has no rights against one that will, that the masses had much
better let the upper ranks do the governing than meddle with it
themselves, that all classes are too eager to act without thinking and
ought not to attempt so much; in society, that democracy is an evil
because it leaves no specially trained upper class to furnish models


## p. 1208 (#634) ###########################################

1208
WALTER BAGEHOT
for refinement. But there is vastly more besides this, and his value
lies much more in the mental clarification afforded by his details
than in the new principles of action afforded by his generalizations.
He leaves men saner, soberer, juster, with a clearer sense of per-
spective, of real issues, that more than makes up for a slight diminu-
tion of zeal.
«<
As pure literature, the most individual trait in his writings sprang
from his scorn of mere word-mongering divorced from actual life.
"A man ought to have the right of being a Philistine if he chooses,"
he tells us: "there is a sickly incompleteness in men too fine for the
world and too nice to work their way through it. " A great man of
letters, no one has ever mocked his craft so persistently. A great
thinker, he never tired of humorously magnifying the active and
belittling the intellectual temperament. Of course it was only half-
serious: he admits the force and utility of colossal visionaries like
Shelley, constructive scholars like Gibbon, ascetic artists like Milton,
even light dreamers like Hartley Coleridge; indeed, intellectually he
appreciates all intellectual force, and scorns feeble thought which
has the effrontery to show itself, and those who are cross with the
agony of a new idea. " But his heart goes out to the unscholarly
Cavalier with his dash and his loyalty, to the county member who
"hardly reads two books per existence," and even to the rustic who
sticks to his old ideas and whom "it takes seven weeks to compre-
hend an atom of a new one. " A petty surface consistency must not
be exacted from the miscellaneous utterances of a humorist: all sorts
of complementary half-truths are part of his service. His own quite
just conception of humor, as meaning merely full vision and balanced
judgment, is his best defense: "when a man has attained the deep
conception that there is such a thing as nonsense," he says, "you
may be sure of him for ever after. " At bottom he is thoroughly con-
sistent: holding that the masses should work in contented deference
to their intellectual guides, but those guides should qualify them-
selves by practical experience of life, that poetry is not an amuse-
ment for lazy sybarites but the most elevating of spiritual influences,
that religions cut the roots of their power by trying to avoid super-
naturalism and cultivate intelligibility, and that the animal basis of
human life is a screen expressly devised to shut off direct knowledge
of God and make character possible.
To make his acquaintance first is to enter upon a store of high
and fine enjoyment, and of strong and vivifying thought, which one
must be either very rich of attainment or very feeble of grasp to find
unprofitable or pleasureless.
Horn't Morgan,


## p. 1209 (#635) ###########################################

WALTER BAGEHOT
THE VIRTUES OF STUPIDITY
From 'Letters on the French Coup d'État›
――――――
1209
I
FEAR you will laugh when I tell you what I conceive to be
about the most essential mental quality for a free people
whose liberty is to be progressive, permanent, and on a large
scale: it is much stupidity. Not to begin by wounding any
present susceptibilities, let me take the Roman character; for with
one great exception, I need not say to whom I allude, - they
are the great political people of history. Now, is not a certain.
dullness their most visible characteristic? What is the history of
their speculative mind? a blank; what their literature? a copy.
They have left not a single discovery in any abstract science,
not a single perfect or well-formed work of high imagination.
The Greeks, the perfection of human and accomplished genius,
bequeathed to mankind the ideal forms of self-idolizing art, the
Romans imitated and admired; the Greeks explained the laws of
nature, the Romans wondered and despised; the Greeks invented
a system of numerals second only to that now in use, the Ro-
mans counted to the end of their days with the clumsy apparatus.
which we still call by their name; the Greeks made a capital and
scientific calendar, the Romans began their month when the
Pontifex Maximus happened to spy out the new moon. Through-
out Latin literature, this is the perpetual puzzle:- Why are we
free and they slaves, we prætors and they barbers? why do the
stupid people always win and the clever people always lose? I
need not say that in real sound stupidity the English are un-
rivaled: you'll hear more wit and better wit in an Irish street
row than would keep Westminster Hall in humor for five weeks.
In fact, what we opprobriously call "stupidity," though not an
enlivening quality in common society, is nature's favorite resource
for preserving steadiness of conduct and consistency of opinion;
it enforces concentration: people who learn slowly, learn only
what they must. The best security for people's doing their duty
is, that they should not know anything else to do; the best se-
curity for fixedness of opinion is, that people should be incapable
of comprehending what is to be said on the other side. These
valuable truths are no discoveries of mine: they are familiar


## p. 1210 (#636) ###########################################

1210
WALTER BAGEHOT
enough to people whose business it is to know them. Hear what
a douce and aged attorney says of your peculiarly promising bar-
rister: "Sharp? Oh, yes! he's too sharp by half. He is not
safe, not a minute, isn't that young man. " I extend this, and
advisedly maintain that nations, just as individuals, may be too
clever to be practical and not dull enough to be free.
And what I call a proper stupidity keeps a man from all the
defects of this character: it chains the gifted possessor mainly to
his old ideas, it takes him seven weeks to comprehend an atom
of a new one; it keeps him from being led away by new theo-
ries, for there is nothing which bores him so much; it restrains
him within his old pursuits, his well-known habits, his tried expe-
dients, his verified conclusions, his traditional beliefs.