35 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 cy-45 mini sectores [hair-splitters']. 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. II.-OF FRIENDSHIP. 1. It had been hard for him that spake it to have put more truth and untruth together in few words than in that speech, "Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god." For it is most true that a natural and secret hatred and aversation towards society in any man hath somewhat of the sav- 5 age beast; but it is most untrue that it should have any character at all of the divine nature, except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man's self for a higher conversation, such as is found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathen- as Epimeni- 1 7. except, unless. 8, 9. to sequester... conversation: that is, to seclude himself for the sake of following a higher course of life. The word "conversation" formerly signified habit of life, and in this meaning it is often employed in the Bible: thus in Psa. xxxvii. 14; Phil. i. 27; 1 Peter iii. 1, 16. 10. Epimen ́idēs, a poet and prophet of Candia or Crete. After his death he was revered as a god by the Athenians on account of the many useful counsels he had given. 1 Cymini sectores is literally splitters of cummin, one of the smallest of seeds. des the Candian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana,-and truly and really in divers of the ancient hermits and holy fathers of the Church. 2. But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth; for a crowd is not company, and faces are but a 15 gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. The Latin adage meeteth with it a little, Magna civitas, magna solitudo [a great city is a great solitude],—because in a great town friends are scattered, so that there is not that fellowship, for the most part, which is in less neighborhoods. But we 20 may go further, and affirm most truly that it is a mere * and miserable solitude to want true friends, without which the world is but a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity. 25 3. A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and discharge of the fulness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings and suffocations are the most dangerous in the body; and it is not much otherwise in the mind. You may take sarza to open the 30 liver, steel to open the spleen, flowers of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart but a true friend, to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession. 4. It is a strange thing to observe how high a rate great kings and monarchs do set upon this fruit of friendship whereof we speak so great as they purchase it many times at the hazard of II. Nu'ma, second king of Rome (B.C. | 12. Apollo'nius, a Pythagorean philoso715-672). He encouraged the belief that he received help in his pher who flourished during the reigns of Vespasian and Domitian. Egeria. Emped ́oclēs, a Sicilian 17. meeteth with it: that is, corresponds It is recorded that he wished | 21. mere, absolute. it to be believed that he was 25. humanity, human nature. a god; and, that his death 30. sarza, sarsaparilla. might be unknown, he threw 32. castoreum, a substance found in the himself into the crater of Mount Etna. body of the beaver (castor). 38. so great as = so great that. 35 their own safety and greatness. For princes, in regard of the distance of their fortune from that of their subjects and ser- 40 vants, cannot gather this fruit except (to make themselves capable thereof) they raise some persons to be, as it were, companions and almost equals to themselves, which many times* sorteth to inconvenience. The modern languages give unto such persons the name of favorites, or privadoes, as if it were matter of 45 grace or conversation; but the Roman name attaineth the true use and cause thereof, naming them participes curarum [sharers in cares], for it is that which tieth the knot. And we see plainly that this hath been done, not by weak and passionate princes only, but by the wisest and most politic that ever reigned; who 5o have oftentimes joined to themselves some of their servants, whom both themselves have called friends, and allowed others likewise to call them in the same manner, using the word which is received between private men. 5. L. Sylla, when he commanded Rome, raised Pompey (after 55 surnamed the Great) to that height that Pompey vaunted himself for Sylla's overmatch.* For when he had carried the consulship for a friend of his, against the pursuit of Sylla, and that Sylla did a little resent thereat and began to speak great, Pompey turned upon him again, and in effect bade him be quiet, 60 "for that more men adored the sun rising than the sun setting." With Julius Cæsar, Decimus Brutus had obtained that interest as he set him down in his testament for heir in remainder after his nephew. And this was the man that had power with him to draw him forth to his death; for when Cæsar would have dis-65 charged the Senate, in regard of some ill presages, and specially a dream of Calpurnia, this man lifted him gently by the arm out of his chair, telling him he hoped he would not dismiss the Senate till his wife had dreamt a better dream. And it seemeth his 43, 44. sorteth to inconvenience: that is, leads to inconvenience. 45. privadoes (Spanish), secret friends. 49. passionate, swayed by the feelings, sentimental. 55. Sylla (more correctly Sulla) was appointed Roman dictator B.C. 81. (See Plutarch's Lives, under 'Pompey.") 66 58. pursuit, candidacy. 67. Calpurnia, the last wife of Julius favor was so great as Antonius, in a letter which is recited ver- 70 batim in one of Cicero's Philippics, calleth him venefica, witch,as if he had enchanted Cæsar. Augustus raised Agrippa (though of mean birth) to that height as, when he consulted with Mæcenas about the marriage of his daughter Julia, Mæcenas took the liberty to tell him that he must either marry his daughter to 75 Agrippa or take away his life; there was no third way, he had made him so great. With Tiberius Cæsar, Sejanus had ascended to that height as they two were termed and reckoned as a pair of friends. Tiberius, in a letter to him, saith, “Hæc pro amicitia nostra non occultavi" [these things, on account of our so friendship, I have not concealed]; and the whole Senate dedicated an altar to friendship, as to a goddess, in respect of the great dearness of friendship between them two. The like, or more, was between Septimus Severus and Plautianus; for he forced his eldest son to marry the daughter of Plautianus, and 85 would often maintain Plautianus in doing affronts to his son: and did write also, in a letter to the Senate, by these words: “I love the man so well as I wish he may over-live me." Now, if these princes had been as a Trajan or a Marcus Aurelius, a man might have thought that this had proceeded of an abundant 90 goodness of nature; but being men so wise, of such strength and severity of mind, and so extreme lovers of themselves, as all these were, it proveth most plainly that they found their own felicity, though as great as ever happened to mortal men, but as an half piece, except they mought* have a friend to make it en- 95 tire; and yet, which is more, they were princes that had wives, sons, nephews, and yet all these could not supply the comfort of friendship. 70. as. See note to line 63. 72. Agrippa, a celebrated Roman gen- 77. Seja'nus, a Tuscan who rose to the 83. dearness, fondness. yet Severus ultimately put Plautianus to death on suspicion of treason. (See Gibbon : Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. v.) Trajan (A.D. 98-117) and Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 161-181), Roman emperors, remarkable for their benevolence and purity of life. 88. over-live me = outlive me. And 95. mought = might, should. 6. It is not to be forgotten what Comineus observeth of his first master, Duke Charles the Hardy-namely, that he would 100 communicate his secrets with none, and least of all those secrets which troubled him most. Whereupon he goeth on, and saith that towards his latter time that closeness did impair and a little perish his understanding. Surely, Comineus mought have made the same judgment also, if it had pleased him, of his sec- 105 ond master, Lewis the Eleventh, whose closeness was indeed his tormentor. The parable of Pythagoras is dark, but true, "Cor ne edito❞—eat not the heart. Certainly, if a man would give it a hard phrase, those that want friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts. But one thing is most admi- 110 rable (wherewith I will conclude this first fruit of friendship), which is, that this communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects, for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halves. For there is no man that imparteth his joys to his friend but he joyeth the more, and no man that imparteth his 115 griefs to his friend but he grieveth the less. So that it is, in truth, of operation upon a man's mind of like virtue as the alchemists use to attribute to their stone for man's body, that it worketh all contrary effects, but still to the good and benefit of nature. But yet without praying in aid of alchemists, there is a 120 manifest image of this in the ordinary course of nature; for, in bodies, union strengtheneth and cherisheth any natural action, and, on the other side, weakeneth and dulleth any violent impression. And even so is it of minds. 99. Comineus (that is, Philip de Co- | 104. perish, enfeeble, cause to decay. 118. their stone: that is, the philoso- Bold), the rival of Louis XI. IOI. with none = to none. To pray in aid is a legal term signifying to call in the help of another having an interest in the cause in question. By “praying in aid of alchemists," therefore, Bacon means calling in alchemists as advocates to assist him in his argument. 124. of, with regard to. |