To the King. It may please your most excellent Majesty,-It being a thing to speak or write, specially to a king, in public, another in private, although I have dedicated a work, or rather a portion of a work, which at last I have overcome, to your majesty by a public epistle, where I speak to you in the hearing of others; yet I thought fit also humbly to seek access for the same, not so much to your person, as to your judgment, by these private lines. The work, in what colours soever it may be set forth, is no more but a new logic, teaching to invent and judge by induction, as finding syllogism incompetent for sciences of nature; and thereby to make philosophy and sciences both more true and more active. This tending to enlarge the bounds of reason, and to endow man's estate with new value, was no improper oblation to your majesty, who, of men, is the greatest master of reason, and author of benefi cence. There be two of your council, and one other bishop of this land, that know I have been about some such work near thirty years; so as I made no haste. And the reason why I have published it now, specially being unperfect, is, to speak plainly, because I number my days, and would have it saved. There is another reason of my so doing, which is to try, whether I can get help in one intended part of this work, namely, the compiling of a natural and experimental history, which must be the main foundation of a true and active philosophy. This work is but a new body of clay, whereinto your majesty, by your countenance and protection, may breathe life. And, to tell your majesty truly what I think, I account your favour may be to this work as much as an hundred years' time; for I am persuaded the work will gain upon men's minds in ages, but your gracing it may make it take hold more swiftly, which I would be very glad of, it being a work meant, not for praise or glory, but for practice and the good of men. One thing, I confess, I am ambitious of, with hope, which is, that after these beginnings, and the wheel once set on going, men shall seek more truth out of Christian pens than hitherto they have done out of heathen. I say with hope; because I hear my former book of the Advancement of Learning is well tasted in the universities here, and the English colleges abroad and this is the same argument sunk deeper. And so I ever humbly rest in prayers, and all other duties, your Majesty's most bounden and devoted servant, FR. VERULAM, Canc. : York House, this 12th of October, 1620. This Letter was written with the King's own hand, to my Lord Chancellor Verulam, upon his Lordship's sending to his Majesty his Novum Organum. My Lord, I have received your letter and your book, than the which you could not have sent a more acceptable present unto me. How thankful I am for it cannot better be expressed by me than by a firm resolution I have taken ; first, to read it through with care and attention, though I should steal some hours from my sleep. Having otherwise as little spare time to read it as you had to write it. And then to use the liberty of a true friend, in not sparing to ask you the question in any point whereof I shall stand in doubt: "Nam ejus est explicare, cujus est condere," as on the other part I will willingly give a due commendation to such places as in my opinion shall deserve it. In the mean time I can with comfort assure you, that you could not have made choice of a subject more befitting your place, and your universal and methodical knowledge; and in the general, I have already observed, that you jump with me, in keeping the mid-way between the two extremes; as also in some particulars, I have found that you agree fully with my opinion. And so praying God to give your work as good success as your heart can wish, and your labours deserve, I bid you heartily farewell. JAMES R. October 16, 1620. To the King, thanking his Majesty for his gracious acceptance of his book. May it please your Majesty,-I cannot express how much comfort I received by your last letter of your own royal hand. I see your majesty is a star, that nath benevolent aspect and gracious influence upon all things, that tend to a general good. Daphni, quid antiquos signorum suspicis artus? Astrum, quo segetes gauderent frugibus, et quo This work, which is for the bettering of men's bread and wine, which are the characters of temporal blessings and sacraments of eternal, I hope, by God's holy providence, will be ripened by Cæsar's star. Your majesty shall not only do to myself a singular favour, but to your business a material help, if you will be graciously pleased to open yourself to me in those things, wherein you may be unsatisfied. For though this work, as by position and principle, doth disclaim to be tried by any thing but by experience, and the results of experience in a true way; yet the sharpness and profoundness of your majesty's judgment ought to be an exception to this general rule; and your questions, observations, and admonishments, may do infinite good. This comfortable beginning makes me hope farther, that your majesty will be aiding to me, in setting men on work for the collecting of a natural and experimental history; which is "basis totius negotii," a thing, which I assure myself will be, from time to time, an excellent recreation unto you; I say, to that admirable spirit of yours, that delighteth in light; and I hope well, that even in your times many noble inventions may be discovered for man's use. For who can tell, now this mine of truth is opened, how the veins go; and what lieth higher, and what lieth lower? But let me trouble your majesty no further at this time. God ever preserve and prosper your majesty. October 19, 1620. To the Marquis of Buckingham. My very good Lord, I send now only to give his majesty thanks for the singular comfort which I received by his majesty's letter of his own hand, touching my book. And I must also give your lordship of my best thanks, for your letter so kindly and affectionately written. I did even now receive your lordship's letter touching the proclamation, and do approve his majesty's judgment and foresight about mine own. Neither would I have thought of inserting matter of state for the vulgar, but that nowa-days there is no vulgar, but all statesmen. But, as his majesty doth excellently consider, the time of it is not yet proper, I ever rest your Lordship's most obliged friend, and faithful servant, FR. VERULAM, Canc. Indorsed-In answer to his majesty's directions touching the proclamation for a parliament. A Letter from the Lord Chancellor Verulam to the University of Cambridge, upon sending to their public library his Novum Organum, to which this letter written with his own hand is affixed. Alma Matri Academiæ Cantabrigiensi,-Cum vester filius sim et alumnus, voluptati mihi erit, partum meum nuper editum vobis in gremium dare: alitèr enim velut pro exposito eum haberem. Nec vos moveat, quod via nova sit. Necesse est enim talia per ætatum et seculorum circuitus evenire. Antiquis tamen suus constat honos; ingenii scilicet: nam fides verbo Dei et experientia tantùm debetur. Scientias autem ad experientiam retrahere, non conceditur: at, easdem ab experientiâ de integro excitare, operosum certè, sed pervium. Deus vobis, et studiis vestris faveat. Filius vester amantissimus, Ex Edibus Eborac. 3 Octob. 1620. FRANC. VERULAM, Canc. (a) (a) Translation by Archbishop Tennison, in Baconiana, 192:-" Seeing I am your son, and your disciple, it will much please me to repose in your bosom Lord Bacon to Sir Henry Wotton. My very good Cousin,-Your letter which I received from your lordship upon your going to sea was more than a compensation for any former omission; and I shall be very glad to entertain a correspondence with you in both kinds, which you writ of; for the latter whereof I am now ready for you, having sent you some ore of that mine. I thank you for your favours to Mr. Mewtus, and I pray continue the same. So wishing you out of that honourable exile, and placed in a better orb, I ever rest your Lordship's affectionate kinsman, and assured friend, FR. VERULAM, Canc. (a) York House, Oct. 20, 1620. Sir Henry Wotton to Lord Bacon. Right honourable, and my very good Lord,-I have your lordship's letters, dated the 20th of October, and I have withal, by the care of my cousin, Mr. Thomas Meawtis, and by your own special favour, three copies of that work, wherewith your lordship hath done a great and ever-living benefit to all the children of nature, and to nature herself in her uttermost extent and latitude : who never before had so noble nor so true an interpreter, or (as I am readier to style your lordship) never so inward a secretary of her cabinet. But of your said work, which came but this week to my hands, I shall find occasion to speak more hereafter; having yet read only the first book thereof, and a few aphorisms of the second. For it is not a banquet that men may superficially taste, and put up the rest in their pockets; but in truth a solid feast, which requireth due mastication. Therefore when I have once myself perused the whole, I determine to have it read piece by piece at certain hours in my domestic college as an ancient author; for I have learned thus much by it already, that we are extremely mistaken in the computation of antiquity, (b) by the issue which I have lately brought forth into the world; for otherwise I should look upon it as an exposed child. Let it not trouble you, that the way in which I go is new; such things will of necessity happen in the revolutions of several ages. However, the honour of the ancients is secured that, I mean, which is due to their wit. For faith is only due to the word of God, and to experience. Now, for bringing back the sciences to experience, is not a thing to be done; but to raise them anew from experience is indeed a very difficult and laborious, but not a hopeless undertaking. God prosper you and your studies. "Your most loving son, FRANCIS VERULAM, Chancel." (a) When this letter, together with the other two next before and after it, were written, upon the occasion of my Lord Chancellor's publishing his Novum Organum, Sir Henry Wotton, so eminent for his many embassies, great learning, candour, and other accomplishments, was resident at Vienna, endeavouring to quench that fire which began to blaze in Germany, upon the proclaiming the Elector Palatine King of Bohemia. How grateful a present this book was to Sir Henry, cannot better be expressed than by his answer to this letter; which though it may be found in his Remains, I hope the reader will not be displeased to see part of it transcribed in this place.-Bacon's Letters. (b) Bentham, in his Book of Fallacies says: "What in common language is called old time, ought (with reference to any period at which the fallacy in question is employed) to be called young or early time. As between individual and individual living at the same time and in the same situation, he who is old possesses, as such, more experience than he who is young ;-as between generation and generation, the reverse of this is true, if, as in ordinary language, a preceding generation be, with reference to a succeeding generation, called old; -the old or preceding generation could not have had so much experience as the succeeding. With respect to such of the materials or sources of wisdom which have come under the cognizance of their own senses, the two are on a par: with respect to such of those materials and sources of wisdom as are derived from the reports of others, the later of the two possesses an indisputable advan searching it backwards, because indeed the first times were the youngest ; especially in points of natural discovery and experience. For though I grant that Adam knew the natures of all beasts, and Solomon of all plants, not only more than any, but more than all since their time; yet that was by divine infusion, and therefore they did not need any such Organum as your lordship hath now delivered to the world; nor we neither, if they had left us the memories of their wisdom. But I am gone further than I meant in speaking of this excellent labour, while the delight yet I feel, and even the pride that I take in a certain congeniality, as I may term it, with your lordship's studies, will scant let me cease: and indeed I owe your lordship even by promise, which you are pleased to remember, thereby doubly binding me, some trouble this way; I mean, by the commerce of philosophical experiments, which surely, of all other, is the most ingenuous traffic: therefore, &c. That a copy was sent to Sir Edward Coke, appears from the following melancholy exhibition of this great lawyer's mind. In the library of the late Thomas Earl of Leicester, the descendant of Sir Edward Coke, at Holkham in Norfolk, is a copy of the Novum Organum, entitled Instauratio Magna, printed by John Bill in 1620, presented to Sir Edward, who at the top of the title page has written Edw. C. ex dono auctoris. Auctori Consilium. Insturare paras veterum documenta sophorum : And over the device of the ship passing between Hercules's pillars, Sir Edward has written the two following verses: 66 It deserveth not to be read in schooles, But to be freighted in the Ship of Fools.” (a) The Novum Organum is noticed by Lord Bacon in other letters, both before and after the publication in 1620. In the year 1609 he wrote To Mr. Matthew, upon sending to him a part of Instauratio Magna. Mr. Matthew,-I plainly perceive by your affectionate writing touching my work, that one and the same thing affecteth us both; which is, the good end tage. In giving the name of old or elder to the earlier generation of the two, the misrepresentation is not less gross, nor the folly of it less incontestable, than if the name of old man or old woman were given to the infant in its cradle. What then is the wisdom of the times called old? Is it the wisdom of gray hairs? No. It is the wisdom of the cradle." (a) Alluding to a famous book of Sebastian Brand, born at Strasburgh about 1460, written in Latin and High Dutch verse, and translated into English in 1508, by Alexander Barklay, and printed at London the year following by Richard Pynson, printer to Henry VII. and Henry VIII. in folio, with the following title," The Shyp of Follys of the World: translated in the Coll. of Saynt Mary Otery in the count of Devonshyre, oute of Latin, Frenche, and Doche, into Englesse tongue, by Alex. Barklay, preste and chaplen in the said College M,CCCCC, VIII." It was dedicated by the translator to Thomas Cornish, bishop of Tine and suffragan bishop of Wells, and adorned with a great variety of wooden cuts. *No one will deny that preceding ages have produced men eminently distinguished by benevolence and genius; it is to them that we owe in succession all the advances which have hitherto been made in the career of human improvement: but as their talents could only be developed in proportion to the state of knowledge at the period in which they lived, and could only have been called into action with a view to then existing circumstances, it is absurd to rely on their authority, at a period and under a state of things altogether different. to which it is dedicated; for as to any ability of mine, it cannot merit that degree of approbation. For your caution for church-men and church-masters, as for any impediment it might be to the applause and celebrity of my work, it moveth me not; but as it may hinder the fruit and good which may come of a quiet and calm passage to the good port which it is bound, I hold it a just respect; so as to fetch a fair wind I go not too far about. But the truth is, that I at all have no occasion to meet them in my way; except it be as they will needs confederate themselves with Aristotle, who, you know, is intemperately magnified by the schoolmen; and is also allied, as I take it, to the jesuits, by Faber, who was a companion of Loyola, and a great Aristotelian. I send you at this time the only part which hath any harshness; and yet I framed to myself an opinion, that whosoever allowed well of that preface, which you so much commend, will not dislike, or at least ought not to dislike, this other speech of preparation; for it is written out of the same spirit, and out of the same necessity: nay, it doth more fully lay open that the question between me and the ancients is not of the virtue of the race, but of the rightness of the way. And to speak truth, it is to the other but as palma to pugnus, part of the same thing more large. You conceive aright, that in this and the other you have commission to impart and communicate them to others according to your discretion. Other matters I write not of. Myself am like the miller of Granchester, that was wont to pray for peace amongst the willows; for while the winds blew, the wind-mills wrought, and the water-mill was less customed. So I see that controversies of religion must hinder the advancement of sciences. Let me conclude with my perpetual wish towards yourself, that the approbation of yourself, by your own discreet and temperate carriage, may restore you to your country, and your friends to your society. And so I commend you to God's goodness. Gray's Inn, Oct. 10, 1609. And there is another letter, in which, to use his own words, it appears "how much his heart was upon it." To Mr. Mathew. Sir, I thank you for your last, and pray you to believe, &c. And I must confess my desire to be, that my writings should not court the present time, or some few places, in such sort as might make them either less general to persons, or less permanent in future ages. As to the Instauration, your so full approbation thereof I read with much comfort, by how much more my heart is upon it; and by how much less I expected consent and concurrence in a matter so obscure. Of this I can assure you, that though many things of great hope decay with youth, and multitude of civil businesses is wont to diminish the price, though not the delight of contemplations, yet the proceeding in that work doth gain with me upon my affection and desire, both by years and businesses. And therefore I hope, even by this, that it is well pleasing to God, from whom, and to whom all good moves. To him I most heartily commend you, And in his address written in the year 1622, to "An Advertisement touching an Holy War, to the Right Reverend Father in God, Lancelot Andrews, Lord Bishop of Winchester, and Counsellor of Estate, to his Majesty." After mentioning the instances of Demosthenes, Cicero, and Seneca, "All three persons that had held chief place of authority in their countries; all three ruined, not by war, or by any other disaster, but by justice and sentence, as delinquents and criminals," he says, "These examples confirmed me much in a resolution whereunto I was otherwise inclined, to spend my time wholly in writing; and to put forth that poor talent, or half talent, or what it is, that God hath given me, not as heretofore to particular exchanges, but to banks or mounts of perpepetuity, which will not break. Therefore having not long since set forth a part of my Instauration, which is the work that in mine own judgment, 'si nunquam fallit imago,' I do most esteem; I think to proceed in some new parts thereof. And although I have received from many parts beyond the seas, testimonies VOL. XV. 17 |