Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books written by Charles W. Eliot

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Now for Nature; as by the ambiguity of this name, the school of
Aristotle hath both commended many errors unto us, and sought also
thereby to obscure the glory of the high moderator of all things,
shining in the creation, and in the governing of the world: so if the
best definition be taken out of the second of Aristotle's "Physics,"
or "primo de Coelo," or out of the fifth of his "Metaphysics"; I
say that the best is but nominal, and serving only to difference the
beginning of natural motion from artificial: which yet the Academics
open better, when they call it "a seminary strength, infused into
matter by the soul of the world": who give the first place to
Providence, the second to Fate, and but the third to Nature.
"Providentia" (by which they understand God) "dux et caput; Fatum,
medium ex providentia prodiens; Natura postremum"[39] But be it what
he will, or be it any of these (God excepted) or participating of all:
yet that it hath choice or understanding (both which are necessarily
in the cause of all things) no man hath avowed. For this is
unanswerable of Lactantius, "Is autem facit aliquid, qui aut
voluntatem faciendi habet, aut scientiam:" "He only can be said to be
the doer of a thing, that hath either will or knowledge in the doing
it."

But the will and science of Nature, are in these words truly expressed
by Ficinus: "Potest ubique Natura, vel per diversa media, vel ex
diversis materiis, diversa facere: sublata vero mediorum materiatumque
diversitate, vel unicum, vel similimum operatur, neque potest
quando adest materia non operari"; "It is the power of Nature by the
diversity of means, or out of diversity of matter, to produce divers
things: but taking away the diversity of means, and the diversity of
matter, it then works but one or the like work; neither can it but
work, matter being present." Now if Nature made choice of diversity of
matter, to work all these variable works of heaven and earth, it had
then both understanding and will; it had counsel to begin; reason to
dispose; virtue and knowledge to finish, and power to govern: without
which all things had been but one and the same: all of the matter of
heaven; or all of the matter of earth. And if we grant Nature this
will, and this understanding, this course, reason, and power: "Cur
Natura potius quam Deus nominetur?" "Why should we then call such a
cause rather Nature, than God?" "God, of whom all men have notion,
and give the first and highest place to divine power": "Omnes homines
notionem deorum habent, omnesque summun locum divino cuidam numini
assignant." And this I say in short; that it is a true effect of true
reason in man (were there no authority more binding than reason)
to acknowledge and adore the first and most sublime power. "Vera
philosophia, est ascensus ab his quae fluunt, et oriuntur, et
occidunt, ad ea quae vera sunt, et semper eadem": "True philosophy, is
an ascending from the things which flow, and arise, and fall, to the
things that are forever the same."

For the rest; I do also account it not the meanest, but an impiety
monstrous, to confound God and Nature; be it but in terms. For it is
God, that only disposeth of all things according to His own will, and
maketh of one earth, vessels of honor and dishonor. It is Nature
that can dispose of nothing, but according to the will of the matter
wherein it worketh. It is God that commandeth all: it is Nature that
is obedient to all: it is God that doth good unto all, knowing and
loving the good He doth: It is Nature, that secondarily doth also
good, but it neither knoweth nor loveth the good it doth. It is God,
that hath all things in Himself: Nature, nothing in itself. It is God,
which is the Father, and hath begotten all things: it is Nature, which
is begotten by all things, in which it liveth and laboreth; for by
itself it existeth not. For shall we say, that it is out of affection
to the earth, that heavy things fall towards it? Shall we call it
reason, which doth conduct every river into the salt sea? Shall
we term it knowledge in fire, that makes it to consume combustible
matter? If it be affection, reason, and knowledge in these; by the
same affection, reason, and knowledge it is, that Nature worketh.
And therefore seeing all things work as they do, (call it by Form, or
Nature, or by what you please) yet because they work by an impulsion,
which they cannot resist, or by a faculty, infused by the supremest
power; we are neither to wonder at, nor to worship, the faculty that
worketh, nor the creature wherein it worketh. But herein lies the
wonder: and to him is the worship due, who hath created such a nature
in things, and such a faculty, as neither knowing itself, the matter
wherein it worketh, nor the virtue and power which it hath; do yet
work all things to their last and uttermost perfection. And therefore
every reasonable man, taking to himself for a ground that which is
granted by all antiquity, and by all men truly learned that ever the
world had; to wit; that there is a power infinite, and eternal (which
also necessity doth prove unto us, without the help of faith, and
reason; without the force of authority) all things do as easily
follow which have been delivered by divine letters, as the waters of
a running river do successfully pursue each other from the first
fountains.

This much I say it is, that reason itself hath taught us: and this is
the beginning of knowledge. "Sapientia praecedit, Religio sequitur:
quia prius est Deum scire, consequens colere"; "Sapience goes before,
Religion follows: because it is first to know God, and then to worship
Him." This sapience Plato calleth "absoluti boni scientiam," "the
science of the absolute good": and another "scientiam rerum primarum,
sempiternarum, perpetuarum"[40] For "faith (saith Isidore) is not
extorted by violence; but by reason and examples persuaded": "fides
nequaquam vi extorquetur, sed ratione et exemplis suadetur." I confess
it, that to inquire further, as to the essence of God, of His power,
of His art, and by what means He created the world: or of His secret
judgment, and the causes, is not an effect of reason. "Sed cum ratione
insaniunt," but "they grow mad with reason," that inquire after it.
For as it is no shame, nor dishonor (saith a French author) "de faire
arrest au but qu'on nasceu surpasser," "for a man to rest himself
there where he finds it impossible to pass on further": so whatsoever
is beyond, and out of the reach of true reason, it acknowledged it to
be so; as understanding itself not to be infinite, but according to
the name and nature it hath, to be a teacher, that best knows the end
of his own art. For seeing both reason and necessity teach us (reason,
which is "pars divini spiritus in corpus humanum mersi"[41]) that the
world was made by a power infinite; and yet how it was made, it cannot
teach us: and seeing the same reason and necessity make us know,
that the same infinite power is everywhere in the world; and yet how
everywhere, it cannot inform us: our belief hereof is not weakened,
but greatly strengthened, by our ignorance, because it is the same
reason that tells us, that such a nature cannot be said to be God,
that can be in all conceived by man.

I have already been over-long, to make any large discourse either of
the parts of the following story, or in mine own excuse: especially in
the excuse of this or that passage; seeing the whole is exceeding
weak and defective. Among the grossest, the unsuitable division of
the books, I could not know how to excuse, had I not been directed to
enlarge the building after the foundation was laid, and the first
part finished. All men know that there is no great art in the dividing
evenly of these things, which are subject to number and measure. For
the rest, it suits well enough with a great many books of this
age, which speak too much, and yet say little; "Ipsi nobis furto
subducimur"; "We are stolen away from ourselves," setting a high price
on all that is our own. But hereof, though a late good writer make
complaint, yet shall it not lay hold on me, because I believe as he
doth; that who so thinks himself the wisest man, is but a poor and
miserable ignorant. Those that are the best men of war against all
the vanities and fooleries of the world, do always keep the strongest
guards against themselves, to defend them from themselves; from
self-love, self-estimation, and self-opinion.

Generally concerning the order of the work, I have only taken counsel
from the argument. For of the Assyrians, which after the downfall of
Babel take up the first part, and were the first great kings of
the world, there came little to the view of posterity: some few
enterprises, greater in fame than faith, of Ninus and Semiramis,
excepted.

It was the story of the Hebrews, of all before the Olympiads, that
overcame the consuming disease of time, and preserved itself, from the
very cradle and beginning to this day: and yet not so entire, but
that the large discourses thereof (to which in many Scriptures we are
referred) are nowhere found. The fragments of other stories, with the
actions of those kings and princes which shot up here and there in the
same time, I am driven to relate by way of digression: of which we may
say with Virgil: "Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto"; "They appear
here and there floating in the great gulf of time."

To the same first ages do belong the report of many inventions therein
found, and from them derived to us; though most of the authors' names
have perished in so long a navigation. For those ages had their laws;
they had diversity of government; they had kingly rule; nobility;
policy in war; navigation, and all, or the most of needful trades. To
speak therefore of these (seeing in a general history we should have
left a great deal of nakedness, by their omission) it cannot properly
be called a digression. True it is, that I have made also many others:
which if they shall be laid to my charge, I must cast the fault into
the great heap of human error. For seeing we digress in all the
ways of our lives: yea, seeing the life of man is nothing else but
digression; I may the better be excused, in writing their lives and
actions. I am not altogether ignorant in the laws of history and of
the kinds.

The same hath been taught by many, but no man better, and with greater
brevity, than by that excellent learned gentleman, Sir Francis Bacon.
Christian laws are also taught us by the prophets and apostles; and
every day preached unto us. But we still make large digressions: yea,
the teachers themselves do not (in all) keep the path which they point
out to others.

For the rest, after such time as the Persians had wrested the Empire
from the Chaldeans, and had raised a great monarchy, producing actions
of more importance than were elsewhere to be found; it was agreeable
to the order of the story, to attend this Empire; whilst it so
flourished, that the affairs of the nations adjoining had reference
thereunto. The like observance was to be used towards the fortunes of
Greece, when they again began to get ground upon the Persians; as also
towards the affairs of Rome, when the Romans grew more mighty than the
Greeks.

As for the Medes, the Macedonians, the Sicilians, the Carthaginians,
and other nations who resisted the beginnings of the former empires,
and afterwards became but parts of their composition and enlargement;
it seemed best to remember what was known of them from their several
beginnings, in such times and places as they in their flourishing
estates opposed those monarchies, which in the end swallowed them up.
And herein I have followed the best geographers: who seldom give
names to those small brooks, whereof many, joined together, make great
rivers: till such times as they become united, and run in main stream
to the ocean sea. If the phrase be weak, and the style not everywhere
like itself: the first shows their legitimation and true parent; the
second will excuse itself upon the variety of matter. For Virgil, who
wrote his _Eclogues_, "gracili avena,"[42] used stronger pipes, when
he sounded the wars of Aeneas. It may also be laid to my charge, that
I use divers Hebrew words in my first book, and elsewhere: in which
language others may think and I myself acknowledge it, that I am
altogether ignorant: but it is true, that some of them I find in
Montanus, others in Latin characters in S. Senensis; and of the rest I
have borrowed the interpretation of some of my friends. But say I had
been beholding to neither, yet were it not to be wondered at, having
had an eleven years' leisure, to attain the knowledge of that, or of
any other tongue; howsoever, I know that it will be said by many, that
I might have been more pleasing to the reader, if I had written the
story of mine own times, having been permitted to draw water as near
the well-head as another. To this I answer, that whosoever in writing
a modern history, shall follow truth too near the heels, it may haply
strike out his teeth. There is no mistress or guide, that hath led her
followers and servants into greater miseries. He that goes after her
too far off, loseth her sight, and loseth himself: and he that walks
after her at a middle distance: I know not whether I should call that
kind of course, temper,[43] or baseness. It is true, that I never
travelled after men's opinions, when I might have made the best use
of them: and I have now too few days remaining, to imitate those, that
either out of extreme ambition, or of extreme cowardice, or both, do
yet (when death hath them on his shoulders) flatter the world, between
the bed and the grave. It is enough for me (being in that state I am)
to write of the eldest times: wherein also why may it not be said,
that in speaking of the past, I point at the present, and tax the
vices of those that are yet living, in their persons that are long
since dead; and have it laid to my charge? But this I cannot help,
though innocent. And certainly, if there be any, that finding
themselves spotted like the tigers of old time, shall find fault with
me for painting them over anew, they shall therein accuse themselves
justly, and me falsely.

For I protest before the Majesty of God, that I malice no man under
the sun. Impossible I know it is to please all; seeing few or none are
so pleased with themselves, or so assured of themselves, by reason of
their subjection to their private passions, but that they seem divers
persons in one and the same day. Seneca hath said it, and so do I:
"Unus mihi pro populo erat";[44] and to the same effect Epicurus, "Hoc
ego non multis sed tibi";[45] or (as it hath since lamentably fallen
out) I may borrow the resolution of an ancient philosopher, "Satis
est unus, satis est nullus."[46] For it was for the service of that
inestimable Prince Henry, the successive hope, and one of the greatest
of the Christian world, that I undertook this work. It pleased him to
peruse some part thereof, and to pardon what was amiss. It is now left
to the world without a master: from which all that is presented, hath
received both blows and thanks: "Eadem probamus, eadem reprehendimus:
hic exitus est omnis judicii, in quolis secundum plures datur."[47]
But these discourses are idle. I know that as the charitable will
judge charitably: so against those, "Qui gloriantur in malitia,"[48]
my present adversity hath disarmed me, I am on the ground already,
and therefore have not far to fall: and for rising again, as in the
natural privation there is no recession to habit; so it is seldom seen
in the privation politic. I do therefore forbear to style my readers
gentle, courteous, and friendly, thereby to beg their good opinions,
or to promise a second and third volume (which I also intend) if the
first receive grace and good acceptance. For that which is already
done, may be thought enough, and too much: and it is certain, let us
claw the reader with never so many courteous phrases, yet shall we
evermore be thought fools, that write foolishly. For conclusion, all
the hope I have lies in this, that I have already found more ungentle
and uncourteous readers of my love towards them, and well-deserving of
them, than ever I shall do again. For had it been otherwise, I should
hardly have had this leisure, to have made myself a fool in print.

[Footnote A: A sketch of the life of Raleigh will be found prefixed to
his "Discovery of Guiana" in the volume of "Voyages and Travels".
His "History of the World" was written during his imprisonment in
the Tower of London, which lasted from 1603 to 1616. The Preface
is interesting not only as a fine piece of Elizabethan prose but as
exhibiting the attitude toward history, and the view of the relation
of history to religion and philosophy, which characterized one who
represented with exceptional vigor the typical Elizabethan man of
action and who was also a man of thought and imagination.]

[Footnote 1: Queen Elizabeth]

[Footnote 2: "An ill opinion, honorably acquired, is pleasing."]

[Footnote 3: "So you not to yourselves."]

[Footnote 4: "He increased, with the result that he is oppressed by
his greatness."]

[Footnote 5: "The insult done in scorning her beauty."]

[Footnote 6: "God gave to Solomon largeness of heart."--1 Kings iv.
89.]

[Footnote 7: Step. Pasquiere, Recherches, lib. v. cap. i.]

[Footnote 8: Step-mother.]

[Footnote 9: i.e., Protestantism]

[Footnote 10: Instantly.]

[Footnote 11: Dispossessed.]

[Footnote 12: "Nothing hindering."]

[Footnote 13: "That they are wise in a foolish matter."--Lactantius,
_De falsa sapientia_, 3, 29.]

[Footnote 14: Augustine, _De cura pro morte_.]

[Footnote 15: "Wealth acquired without fraud."]

[Footnote 16: "O how many go down with this hope to endless labors and
wars."]

[Footnote 17: Transient.]

[Footnote 18: Opponents.]

[Footnote 19: "Everything which is to come lies in uncertainty."]

[Footnote 20: "Who follow their commander with groans."]

[Footnote 21: "It takes great genius to call back the mind from the
senses."]

[Footnote 22: "Against him who denies the principles."]

[Footnote 23: "Specific virtue, or power."]

[Footnote 24: "The Roman Church."]

[Footnote 25: "I shall light a lamp of understanding in thine
heart."--IV. Esdras xiv. 25.]

[Footnote 26: Followers.]

[Footnote 27: "Prepared and sworn to protect with unconquered minds
the opinions of the philosophers whom they follow."]

[Footnote 28: "Out of nothing."]

[Footnote 29: "Out of pre-existing matter."]

[Footnote 30: "Because comprehension is between limits, which are
opposed to infinity."]

[Footnote 31: "God exhibits all things in one existence"]

[Footnote 32: "The essence of all things, visible and invisible, is
divinity itself"]

[Footnote 33: "Causally."]

[Footnote 34: "Not as form, but as universal cause"]

[Footnote 35: "It [i.e., the infinite] has no beginning, but itself is
perceived to be the beginning of all things, and to embrace and govern
all things."]

[Footnote 36: "Primal matter."]

[Footnote 37: "Which destroys all proportion."]

[Footnote 38: "The spiritual world."]

[Footnote 39: "Providence, leader and head; Fate, in the middle and
proceeding from Providence; Nature, last."]

[Footnote 40: "The science of things first, eternal, perpetual."]

[Footnote 41: "Part of the divine spirit immersed in the human body."]

[Footnote 42: "With delicate pipe."]

[Footnote 43: Moderation]

[Footnote 44: "To me one man stood for the people."]

[Footnote 45: "I [have done] this not for many, but for thee."]

[Footnote 46: "One is enough, none is enough."]

[Footnote 47: "We approve the same things, we blame the same
things--this is the result in every case in which the verdict is
rendered according to the majority."]

[Footnote 48: "Who glory in malice"]

PROOEMIUM, EPISTLE DEDICATORY, PREFACE, AND PLAN OF THE INSTAURATIO
MAGNA, ETC.

BY FRANCIS BACON[A]

FRANCIS OF VERULAM REASONED THUS WITH HIMSELF,

AND JUDGED IT TO BE FOR THE INTEREST OF THE PRESENT AND FUTURE
GENERATIONS THAT THEY SHOULD BE MADE ACQUAINTED WITH HIS THOUGHTS

Being convinced that the human intellect makes its own difficulties,
not using the true helps which are at man's disposal soberly and
judiciously; whence follows manifold ignorance of things, and by
reason of that ignorance mischiefs innumerable; he thought all trial
should be made, whether that commerce between the mind of man and the
nature of things, which is more precious than anything on earth, or
at least than anything that is of the earth, might by any means be
restored to its perfect and original condition, or if that may not be,
yet reduced to a better condition than that in which it now is. Now
that the errors which have hitherto prevailed, and which will prevail
forever, should (if the mind be left to go its own way), either by
the natural force of the understanding or by help of the aids and
instruments of Logic, one by one correct themselves, was a thing not
to be hoped for: because the primary notions of things which the mind
readily and passively imbibes, stores up, and accumulates (and it is
from them that all the rest flow) are false, confused, and overhastily
abstracted from the facts; nor are the secondary and subsequent
notions less arbitrary and inconstant; whence it follows that the
entire fabric of human reason which we employ in the inquisition of
nature, is badly put together and built up, and like some magnificent
structure without any foundation. For while men are occupied in
admiring and applauding the false powers of the mind, they pass by and
throw away those true powers, which, if it be supplied with the proper
aids and can itself be content to wait upon nature instead of vainly
affecting to overrule her, are within its reach. There was but one
course left, therefore,--to try the whole thing anew upon a better
plan, and to commence a total reconstruction of sciences, arts, and
all human knowledge, raised upon the proper foundations. And this,
though in the project and undertaking it may seem a thing infinite and
beyond the powers of man, yet when it comes to be dealt with it will
be found sound and sober, more so than what has been done hitherto.
For of this there is some issue; whereas in what is now done in the
matter of science there is only a whirling round about, and perpetual
agitation, ending where it began. And although he was well aware how
solitary an enterprise it is, and how hard a thing to win faith and
credit for, nevertheless he was resolved not to abandon either it or
himself; nor to be deterred from trying and entering upon that one
path which is alone open to the human mind. For better it is to make
a beginning of that which may lead to something, than to engage in
a perpetual struggle and pursuit in courses which have no exit. And
certainly the two ways of contemplation are much like those two ways
of action, so much celebrated, in this--that the one, arduous and
difficult in the beginning, leads out at last into the open
country; while the other, seeming at first sight easy and free from
obstruction, leads to pathless and precipitous places.

Moreover, because he knew not how long it might be before these things
would occur to any one else, judging especially from this, that he
has found no man hitherto who has applied his mind to the like, he
resolved to publish at once so much as he has been able to complete.
The cause of which haste was not ambition for himself, but solicitude
for the work; that in case of his death there might remain some
outline and project of that which he had conceived, and some evidence
likewise of his honest mind and inclination towards the benefit of the
human race. Certain it is that all other ambition whatsoever seemed
poor in his eyes compared with the work which he had in hand; seeing
that the matter at issue is either nothing, or a thing so great that
it may well be content with its own merit, without seeking other
recompence.

[Footnote A: A sketch of Bacon's life will be found prefixed to his
"Essays" in another volume of the Harvard Classics. His "Instauratio
Magna" or "Great Renewal," the great work by which he hoped to create
a scientific revolution and deliver mankind from Aristotelianism, was
left far from complete; but the nature of his scheme and the scale
on which it was planned are indicated in these Prefaces, which are
typical both of the man and of the age in which he lived.]

EPISTLE DEDICATORY

TO THE INSTAURATIO MAGNA

TO OUR MOST GRACIOUS AND MIGHTY PRINCE AND LORD

JAMES

BY THE GRACE OF GOD OF GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE AND IRELAND KING,
DEFENDER OF THE FAITH, ETC.

_Most Gracious and Mighty King_,

Your Majesty may perhaps accuse me of larceny, having stolen from your
affairs so much time as was required for this work. I know not what to
say for myself. For of time there can be no restitution, unless it be
that what has been abstracted from your business may perhaps go to the
memory of your name and the honour of your age; if these things are
indeed worth anything. Certainly they are quite new; totally new in
their very kind: and yet they are copied from a very ancient model;
even the world itself and the nature of things and of the mind. And to
say truth, I am wont for my own part to regard this work as a child of
time rather than of wit; the only wonder being that the first notion
of the thing, and such great suspicions concerning matters long
established, should have come into any man's mind. All the rest
follows readily enough. And no doubt there is something of accident
(as we call it) and luck as well in what men think as in what they do
or say. But for this accident which I speak of, I wish that if
there be any good in what I have to offer, it may be ascribed to
the infinite mercy and goodness of God, and to the felicity of your
Majesty's times; to which as I have been an honest and affectionate
servant in my life, so after my death I may yet perhaps, through the
kindling of this new light in the darkness of philosophy, be the means
of making this age famous to posterity; and surely to the times of the
wisest and most learned of kings belongs of right the regeneration
and restoration of the sciences. Lastly, I have a request to make--a
request no way unworthy of your Majesty, and which especially concerns
the work in hand; namely, that you who resemble Solomon in so many
things--in the gravity of your judgments, in the peacefulness of your
reign, in the largeness of your heart, in the noble variety of the
books which you have composed--would further follow his example
in taking order for the collecting and perfecting of a Natural and
Experimental History, true and severe (unincumbered with literature
and book-learning), such as philosophy may be built upon,--such, in
fact, as I shall in its proper place describe: that so at length,
after the lapse of so many ages, philosophy and the sciences may no
longer float in air, but rest on the solid foundation of experience
of every kind, and the same well examined and weighed. I have provided
the machine, but the stuff must be gathered from the facts of nature.
May God Almighty long preserve your Majesty!

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