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Universal benevolence, however, is quite compatible with callousness in dealing with individuals, and it is here where Bacon's deficiencies become apparent. His habit of seeing things from the universal standpoint made him indifferent to individuals. "In profusion," he

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writes, there is no room for desire." An enthusiast for truth he had little regard for the truth, and though in this he was perhaps no worse than others who were similarly engaged in affairs, and better than some, yet he had more pretensions than they had and more light. But I think it will be found, if once the view is accepted as to the phenomenal character of Bacon's imaginative faculty, that there was a corresponding deficiency on the emotional side, which accounts for the deficiency in moral sense which his character and writings suggest. In the quality of philosophic judgment Bacon is supreme, and as no man has really good judgment in matters beyond the everyday experience who is deficient in imagination, it seems reasonable to conclude that the one follows to some extent from the other. In any case the greater the genius the greater the necessity, in order to make it effective, for judicial control. In Bacon imagination and judgment worked together, but on the emotional side and in moral sense he was relatively weak. There is, however, another cause to which Bacon's attitude towards the people, which we are here considering, may partly be attributed, namely, his passion for order and completeness (or finality). This is essentially a passion of the soul, to which the complexity and shifting nature of phenomena are abhorrent. In Spenser's poetry, laments over "mutability" are constant, and the sense of it is stamped on Shakespeare's greatest work. In the region of politics it took the form with Bacon of a distrust of all changes in machinery, and of a desire to concentrate power in the fewest hands: "therefore care would be had that (as it fareth in ill purgings) the good be not taken away with the bad, which commonly is done when the people is the reformer" ("Of Superstition ").

Bacon had also a passion for distinction and magnifi

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cence, with a strong instinct for worship, and the sovereign, in his mind, was the idealised object of these feelings. In short, his spiritual ideas are primitive and, if one may use the phrase in so great an example, child-like. In this respect he is below the standard of his age, and seems to me to present the phenomenon of what is called by biologists a "throwback." Spiritually, he is nearer allied to Homer than Aeschylus was. French critics have said that the distinguishing feature of English poetry is the imagination displayed in it, which is an affair of "energy." Apart from the question of experience and the trained judgment required in the process of selection, I think there is probably a good deal of truth in this. This energy" has its roots in the past, and it seems certain that the special manifestation of it in "invention "-the combined effect of imagination with great powers of memory-was more universal in remote antiquity than in historical times. Bacon certainly held this opinion. In "invention " Shakespeare and Spenser surpass all the poets, perhaps even not excluding Homer, and both of them give evidence of the same primitive spirituality which is one of the most noticeable features in Bacon's life and writings. Possibly, therefore, the presence of the power of "invention" in an abnormal degree is necessarily accompanied by a backward spiritual development. The idea that the quality of imagination found in Shakespeare's plays was a product of the times which was shared to a

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1 In contradistinction with "taste" (goût), the sense of fitness and order, in which French art excels.

2 The ancients held that the essence of poetry was "invention." In Sidney's Apologie those poets only who display this quality are treated as "right poets." Bacon (Adv. of Learning) expresses the same view; so did Dr. Johnson (see Life of Waller). Spenser, when he speaks of "the antique Poets historicall" (by which he means "feigned history"), has the same thought in mind (see letter to Ralegh introductory to the Faerie Queene, and cf. Adv. of Learning, Spedding, Works, iii. 343 sq., quoted below in Chapter V. p. 152).

3 The only difference (not an essential one) which I can perceive between Spenser and Shakespeare is that the former ransacks books more obviously for his examples, and writes in the trammels of an elaborately rhymed stanza, whereas the latter draws his material more directly from life, through a maturer self-knowledge, and is less hampered by difficulties of form.

large extent by every one is, in my belief, a misconception. The scene between Hamlet and the players is enough, by itself, to throw doubt on this theory.1

It is unnecessary to quote examples from Shakespeare's plays of his attitude towards the crowd, as they are familiar to everybody. The habit of thought, and the language in which he expresses it, are similar in all respects to what is found in Spenser and Bacon. Perhaps the best summary of his attitude in his most dispassionate mood is to be found in the lines put into the mouth of the Duke in Measure for Measure:

I love the people,

But do not like to stage me to their eyes;
Though it do well, I do not relish well
Their loud applause and Aves vehement;
Nor do I think the man of safe discretion
That does affect it.

Bacon's sense of order, and apprehension of social change, is reflected in the speech of Ulysses on "degree" (the Baconian style of which has frequently been noticed) in Troilus and Cressida (i. 3).

I should like to say a word here (though it be a digression) about the late Count Tolstoi's hatred of Shakespeare. An article by him appeared in one of the London Reviews some years ago, in which he maintained that Shakespeare had hypnotised the world, but that in reality he was inexpressibly tedious and trivial, and frequently repulsive. His method of showing this took the form of relating certain passages in King Lear in the feeblest possible language, and then pointing out their absurdity or other objections. For so great a man the performance seemed rather a barren one. On the other hand, the violent hostility of the writer required an explanation, and I came to the conclusion that it was mainly due to Shakespeare's attitude towards the crowd, and to his slender recognition of the spiritual

1 e.g. "the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise."

feelings and aspirations of man. It was also evidently partly due to the fact that Tolstoi did not understand the language, and that from concentration on spiritual problems he had lost the sense of proportion in other matters. At the same time it appeared to me interesting evidence of the antagonism which seems to exist between the spiritual and mundane order. Shakespeare, however, dealt with the world and with man in the world, and if he did not do more, and probably was incapable of doing more, he at least did this, that he showed man himself in a way and on a scale which had never been done before. In this region he did for the English-speaking and modern world what Homer did for antiquity. Whether Shakespeare is widely read or not is perhaps not very material, for his writings, through those who read him, must have profoundly affected the world, and to throw the searchlight of his vision over it and send back to us the results in a form which astonishes and delights the mind, and at the same time enables us to learn more to know ourselves and others, seems to have been his special work. Yet, in spite of its prejudice and exaggeration, I have always felt that Tolstoi's attitude was illuminating and a corrective of unreasoning idolatry.

I come now to the use made by these three writers of the word "spirits." The meaning of the term will not be understood unless reference is made to Bacon's ideas as to the soul. I say "ideas" rather than theory, because on this subject it is difficult to disentangle from his writings what as a philosopher he regarded as probable from what he adhered to as determined by Christian doctrine, for which I think he had undoubtedly great reverence. It must also be remembered that men wrote on such subjects at that time at their peril, and therefore we can never be quite sure to what extent they are conciliating orthodoxy. But it may be safely

said that the Italian writers (whom Bacon studied) were under greater compulsion in this matter than were the English, at any rate in the latter part of the sixteenth century. Moreover, Bacon's dexterity in the turn of a sentence was such that he was able to say anything he really wished without much risk of offence. Allowance must also be made for changes or modifications of view on such subjects which take place in the minds of thoughtful people, especially where the imagination is strong, during the course of a life of normal period. Such often pass through a period of rejection of received ideas, to return to them again on a different or more individual basis. In illustration I need only cite Bacon's famous saying, which points probably to some such experience in his own case: "It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion."1 Lastly, Bacon's philosophic attitude must be considered with reference to the times and his purpose. His purpose was to promote scientific inquiry by true methods, and to show, in a popular way, which would appeal to men outside as well as inside the schools, that this was not inconsistent with adherence to Christian truth as received in the Church; in other words, to separate philosophy from religion, the commixture of which, in his own words, produced "an heretical religion and an imaginary and fabulous philosophy." His method of effecting this, on the religious side, is expressed in his favourite maxim: "Da fidei quae fidei sunt"; though he did not seem to see (or, if he did, he ignored it) that the phrase begged some of the questions which to the world of that day seemed the most important.

Now, as to Bacon's views on the soul: he is said probably to have taken them from Telesius, an Italian writer of the same century (1509-1588). This may be true to some extent, but, in their general aspect, they are

1 "Of Atheism." This essay did not appear until the second edition (1612).

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