The pedants will be down upon us for speaking of Lord Bacon. It is true
there never was such a personage. Francis Bacon was Baron of Verulam,
Viscount St. Alban, and Lord High Chancellor of England. But this is a
case in which it is impossible to resist the popular usage. After all,
we write to be understood. The pedants, the heralds, and all the rest
of the tribe of technical fanatics, rejoice to mouth "Lord Verulam."
But the ordinary man of letters, like the common run of readers, will
continue to speak of Lord Bacon; for Bacon was his name, and the "Lord"
was but a pretty feather in his hat. And when his lordship took that
splendid pen of his, to jot down some of his profoundest thoughts for
posterity, did he not say in his grand style, "I, Francis Bacon, thought
on this wise"? You cannot get the "Bacon" out of it, and as the "Lord"
will slip in, we must let it stand as Lord Bacon.
Lord Bacon was was a very great man. Who does not remember Pope's
lines?--
If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined,
The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind.
But his hardship was fond of wielding the satiric lash, and that spirit
leads to exaggeration. Bacon was not the meanest of mankind, Pope
himself did things that Bacon would never have stooped to. Nor was Bacon
the wisest and brightest of mankind. A wiser and brighter spirit was
contemporary with him in the person of "a poor player." The dullards
who fancy that Lord Bacon wrote the plays of Shakespeare have no
discrimination. His lordship's mind might have been cut out of the
poet's without leaving an incurable wound. Some will dissent from this,
but be it as it may, the _styles_ of the two men are vastly different,
like their ways of thinking. Bacon's essay on Love is cynical. The man
of the world, the well-bred statesman, looked on Love as "the child of
folly," a necessary nuisance, a tragi-comical perturbation. Shakespeare
saw in Love the mainspring of life. Love speaks "in a perpetual
hyperbole," said Bacon. Shakespeare also said that the lover "sees
Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt," The poet knew all the philosopher
knew, and more. What Bacon laughed or sneered at, Shakespeare recognised
as the magic of the great enchanter, who touches our imaginations and
kindles in us the power of the ideal. Exaggeration there must be in
passion and imagination; it is the defect of their quality; but what are
we without them? Dead driftwood on the tide; dismantled hulls rotting in
harbor; anything that awaits destruction, to give its imprisoned forces
a chance of asserting themselves in new forms of being.
Bacon was not a Shakespeare; still, he was a very great man. His
writings are a text-book of worldly wisdom. His philosophical force
is almost proverbial. Nor was he wanting in a certain "dry" poetry.
No philosophical writer, not even Plato, equals him in the command of
illuminative metaphors; and the fine dignity of his style is beyond all
praise. The words drop from his pen with exquisite ease and felicity.
He is never in a hurry, never ruffled. He writes like a Lord Chancellor,
though with something in him above the office; and if he is now and then
familiar, it is only a slight condescension, like the joke of a judge,
which does not bring him down to the level of the litigants.
The opinions of such a man are worth studying; and as Lord Bacon is
often quoted in condemnation of Atheism, we propose to see what he
actually says about it, what his judgment on this particular theme
is really worth, and what allowance, if any, should be made for the
conditions in which he expressed himself. This last point, indeed,
is one of considerable importance. Lord Bacon lived at a time when
downright heresy, such as Raleigh and other great men of that age were
accused of, could only be ventilated in private conversation. In writing
it could only be hinted or suggested; and, in this respect, a writer's
_silence_ is to be taken into account; that is, we must judge by what he
does _not_ say, as well as by what he _does_ say.
Some writers, like Letourneau, the French ethnologist, have gone to
the length of arguing that Lord Bacon was a Materialist, and that his
Theistic utterances were all perfunctory: as it were, the pinch of
incense which the philosopher was obliged to burn on the altars of
the gods. This much at least is certain--Lord Bacon rarely speaks of
religion except as a philosopher or a statesman. He is apt to sneer at
the "high speculations" of "theologues." There is no piety, no unction,
in his allusions to theology. He looks upon religion as a social bond,
an agency of good government. It is impossible to say that he took
a Christian view of things when he wrote, "I have often thought upon
Death, and I find it the least of all evils"; or when he wrote, "Men
fear death as children fear to go into the dark; and as that natural
fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other."
Lord Bacon has an essay on Atheism, which is significantly followed by
another on Superstition. The latter is seldom referred to by religious
apologists, but we shall deal with it first.
"In all superstition," he says, "wise men follow fools." This is a bold,
significant utterance. Fools are always in the majority, wise men are
few, and they are obliged to bow to the power of the multitude. Kings
respect, and priests organise, the popular folly; and the wise men have
to sit aloft and nod to each other across the centuries. There is a
freemasonry amongst them, and they have their shibboleths and dark
sayings, to protect them against priests and mobs.
Perhaps the story of Balaam is a subtle anticipation of Lord Bacon's
dictum. It was the ass that first saw the angel. Baalam only saw it
afterwards, when his wits were disordered by the wonder of a talking
donkey. Thus the prophet followed the ass, as wise men follow fools.
Superstition is worse than Atheism, in Lord Bacon's judgment; the one
is unbelief, he says, but the other is contumely; and "it were better
to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy
of him." He approves the saying of Plutarch, that he "had rather a great
deal men should say there was no such man as Plutarch, than that they
should say there was one Plutarch that would eat his children as soon as
they were born"--which, on the part of Lord Bacon, looks like a thrust
at the doctrine of original sin and infant damnation.
With his keen eye for "the good of man's estate," Lord Bacon remarks
of superstition, that "as the contumely is greater towards God, so the
danger is greater towards men."
"Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to
laws, to reputation; all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue,
though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and
erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men; therefore Atheism did
never perturb states; for it makes men wary of themselves, as looking
no farther, and we see the times inclined to Atheism (as the time
of Augustus Caesar) were civil times; but superstition hath been the
confusion of many states, and bringeth in a new _primum mobile_ that
ravisheth all the spheres of government."
By "civil times" Lord Bacon means settled, quiet, orderly, progressive
times--times of civilisation. And it is rather singular that he should
pick out the age immediately preceding the advent of Christianity.
Whatever fault is in Atheism, it is no danger to human society. This
is Lord Bacon's judgment, and we commend it to the attention of the
fanatics of faith, who point to Atheism as a horrid monster, fraught
with cruelty, bloodshed, and social disruption.
Coming now to Lord Bacon's essay on Atheism itself, we find him opening
it with a very pointed utterance of Theism. "I had rather," he says,
"believe all the fables in the legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran,
than that this universal frame is without a mind." The expression is
admirable, but the philosophy is doubtful. When a man says he would
_rather_ believe one thing than another, he is merely exhibiting
a personal preference. Real belief is not a matter of taste; it is
determined by evidence--if not absolutely, at least as far as our power
of judgment carries us.
"A little philosophy," his lordship says, "inclineth man's mind
to Atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to
religion." The reason he assigns is, that when we no longer rest in
second causes, but behold "the chain of them confederate, and linked
together," we must needs "fly to providence and Deity." The necessity,
however, is far from obvious. All the laws, as we call them, of all the
sciences together, do not contain any new principle in their addition.
Universal order is as consistent with Materialism as with Theism. It
is easy to say that "God never wrought miracles to convince Atheism,
because his ordinary works convince it"; but, as a matter of fact, it
is the God of Miracles in whom the multitude have always believed. A
special providence, rather than a study of the universe, has been the
secret of their devotion to "the unseen."
Lord Bacon drops below the proper level of his genius in affirming that
"none deny there is a God, but those for whom it maketh that there
were no God." This is but a milder expression of the incivility of the
Psalmist. It is finely rebuked by the atheist Monk in the play of "Sir
William Crichton," the work of a man of great though little recognised
genius--William Smith.
For ye who deem that one who lacks of faith Is therefore
conscience-free, ye little know How doubt and sad denial may enthral him
To the most timid sanctity of life.
Lord Bacon, indeed, rather doubts the existence of the positive Atheist.
"It appeareth in nothing more, that Atheism is rather in the lip than
in the heart of man, than by this, that Atheists will ever be talking
of that their opinion, as if they fainted in it within themselves, and
would be glad to be strengthened by the opinion of others: nay more,
you shall have Atheists strive to get disciples, as it fareth with
other sects; and, which is most of all, you shall have of them that will
suffer for Atheism, and not recant; whereas, if they truly think that
there is no such thing as God, Why should they trouble themselves?"
Although Lord Bacon was not the "meanest of mankind," there was
certainly a lack of the heroic in his disposition; and this passage
emanated from the most prosaic part of his mind and character. "Great
thoughts," said Vauvenargues, "spring from the heart." Now the heart of
Lord Bacon was not as high as his intellect; no one could for a moment
imagine his facing martyrdom. He had none of the splendid audacity,
the undaunted courage, the unshakable fortitude, of his loftier
contemporary, Giordano Bruno. So much truth is there in Pope's epigram,
that his lordship was capable at times of grovelling; witness his
fulsome, though magnificent, dedication of the _Advancement of Learning_
to King James--the British Solomon, as his flatterers called him, to the
amusement of the great Henry of France, who sneered, "Yes, Solomon
the son of David," in allusion to his mother's familiarity with David
Rizzio. And in this very passage of the essay on Atheism we also see
the grovelling side of Lord Bacon, with a corresponding perversion of
intelligence. Being incapable of understanding martyrdom, except under
the expectation of a reward in heaven, his lordship cannot appreciate
the act of an Atheist in suffering for his convictions. His concluding
words are positively _mean_. Surely the Atheist might trouble himself
about truth, justice, and dignity; all of which are involved in the
maintenance and propagation of his principles. But, if the closing
observation is mean, the opening observation is fatuous. This is a
strong word to use of any sentence of Lord Bacon's, but in this instance
it is justifiable. If an Atheist mistrusts his own opinion, because he
talks about it, what is to be said of the Christians, who pay thousands
of ministers to talk about their opinions, and even subscribe for
Missionary Societies to talk about them to the "heathen"? Are we to
conclude that an Atheist's talking shows mistrust, and a Christian's
talking shows confidence? What real weakness is there in the Atheist's
seeking for sympathy and concurrence? It is hard for any man to stand
alone; certainly it was not in Lord Bacon's line to do so; and why
should not the Atheist be "glad to be strengthened by the opinion of
others"! Novalis said that his opinion gained infinitely when it was
shared by another. The participation does not prove the truth of the
opinion, but redeems it from the suspicion of being a mere maggot of an
individual brain.
Lord Bacon then turns to the barbaric races, who worship particular
gods, though they have not the general name; a fact which he did not
understand. More than two hundred years later it was explained by David
Hume. It is simply a proof that monotheism grows out of polytheism; or,
if you like, that Theism is a development of Idolatry. This is a truth
that takes all the sting out of Lord Bacon's observation that "against
Atheists the very savages take part with the very subtilest
philosophers." We may just remark that the philosophers must be very
hard pressed when they call up their savage allies.
Contemplative Atheists are rare, says Lord Bacon--"a Diagoras, a Bion, a
Lucian perhaps, and some others." They seem more than they are, for all
sorts of heretics are branded as Atheists; which leads his lordship to
the declaration that "the great Atheists indeed are hypocrites, which
are ever handling holy things, but without feeling; so as they must
needs be cauterised in the end." This is a pungent observation, and it
springs from the better side of his lordship's nature. We also have no
respect for hypocrites, and for that very reason we object to them as a
present to Atheism. Religion must consume in its own smoke, and dispose
of its own refuse.
The causes of Atheism next occupy Lord Bacon's attention. He finds
they are four; divisions in religion, the scandal of priests, profane
scoffing in holy matters, and "learned times, especially with peace and
prosperity." "Troubles and adversities," his lordship says, "do more
bow men's minds to religion." Which is true enough, though it only
illustrates the line of the Roman poet that religion always has its root
in fear.
It will be observed that, up to the present, Lord Bacon has not
considered one of the reasons _for_ Atheism. What he calls "causes" are
only _occasions_. He does not discuss, or even refer to, the objections
to Theism that are derived from the tentative operations of nature, so
different from what might be expected from a settled plan; from ugly,
venomous and monstrous things; from the great imperfection of nature's
very highest productions; from the ignorance, misery, and degradation of
such a vast part of mankind; from the utter absence of anything like a
moral government of the universe. Only towards the end of his essay does
Lord Bacon begin business with the Atheists. "They that deny a God,"
he says, "destroy a man's nobility; for certainly man is of kin to the
beasts by his body; and, if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he
is a base and ignoble creature." This is pointed and vigorous, but after
all it is a matter of sentiment. Some prefer the fallen angel, others
the risen ape.
Lord Bacon, like Earl Beaconsfield, is on the side of the angels. We
are on the other side. A being who has done something, and will do more,
however humble his origin, is preferable to one who can only boast of
his fine descent.
Finally, his lordship takes the illustration of the dog, to whom man is
"instead of a God." What generosity and courage he will put on, in the
"confidence of a better nature than his own." So man gathereth force
and faith from divine protection and favor. Atheism therefore "depriveth
human nature of the means to exalt itself above human frailty." But
this is to forget that there may be more than one means to the same end.
Human nature may be exalted above its frailty without becoming the dog
of a superior intelligence. Science, self-examination, culture, public
opinion, and the growth of humanity, are more than substitutes for
devotion to a deity. They are capable of exalting man continuously and
indefinitely. They do not appeal to the spaniel element in his nature;
they make him free, erect, noble, and self-dependent.
On the whole we are bound to say that Lord Bacon's essay on Atheism is
unworthy of his genius. If it were the only piece of his writing extant,
we should say it was the work of one who had great powers of expression
but no remarkable powers of thought. He writes very finely as a strong
advocate, putting a case in a way that commands attention, and perhaps
admiration for its force and skill. But something more than this is to
be expected when a really great man addresses himself to a question of
such depth and importance. What then are we to conclude? Why this, that
Lord Bacon dared not give the rein to his mind in an essay on
Atheism. He was bound to be circumspect in a composition level to the
intelligence of every educated reader. We prefer to take him where he
enjoys greater freedom. Under the veil of a story, for instance, he
aims a dart at the superstition of a special providence, which is an
ineradicable part of the Christian faith.
Bion, the Atheist, being shown the votive tablets in the temple of
Neptune, presented by those who prayed to the god in a storm and were
saved, asked where were the tablets of those who were drowned. Bacon
tells the story with evident gusto, and it is in such things that we
seem to get at his real thoughts. In a set essay on Atheism, a man
of his worldly wisdom, and un-heroic temper, was sure to kneel at the
regular altars. The single query "Why should they trouble themselves?"
explains it all.