the latter, what Bacon calls real characters, which he defines as being characters which express, not letters or words, but things and notions, but yet as distinguished from hieroglyphics by having in them nothing emblematical, and being in themselves altogether surd or inexpressive, as much as the letters of the alphabet, the meaning attached to them being simply the arbitrary imposition of custom or tacit agreement. Grammar, again,—“ whereof," he says, "the use in a mother tongue is small, in a foreign tongue more, but most in such foreign tongues as have ceased to be vulgar tongues, and are turned only to learned tongues," he divides into Literary and Philosophical; meaning by the former the Grammar of particular languages; by the latter, the doctrine of the analogy, not of words to one another, but of words to things, or to reason. Bacon's Philosophical Grammar, however, would scarcely appear to be the same thing that is now understood by Philosophical or General Grammar, which aims at investigating the rationale of expressions and grammatical forms by the reduction of their diversities to certain common principles. He seems, as far as can be gathered from his somewhat imperfect and unsatisfactory exposition, to have contemplated rather the tracing of the peculiarities of different languages to corresponding peculiarities of national character. To Grammar is considered to belong every thing relating to the sound, the measure, and the accent of words, and to so much of poetry as lies in the verse. Lastly under the head of writing is noticed the subject of Ciphers, or secret writing; and here Bacon gives an account of a cipher of his own invention; devised by him, he says, when he was a young man at Paris; and still, he adds, appearing to him worthy of being preserved, seeing that it possesses the quality of the cipher in the highest degree, namely that all things may with it be signified in all forms (omnia per omnia), subject to no other disadvantage except that the writing involved is only one-fifth of that in which it is involved-in other words, that the cipher is five times as cumbrous as the plain writing would be. The details must be sought in his own pages. They are given only in the De Aug mentis. In the Second Chapter, which is occupied with the doctrine of Method, there is not much added to the original disquisition in the Advancement. Method, it is observed, is commonly treated of as a part of Logic; and also as a part of Rhetoric, under the name of Disposition (or Arrangement); but it seems to deserve to be made a doctrine by itself, which may be designated the Wisdom, or Prudential Part, of the Traditive Art (Prudentiam Traditivae). The following passage in the Advancement is somewhat extended in the De Augmentis :— Neither is the method or the nature of the tradition material only to the use of knowledge, but likewise to the progression of knowledge: for since the labour and life of one man cannot attain to perfection of knowledge, the wisdom of the tradition is that which inspireth the felicity of continuance and proceeding. And therefore the most real diversity of method is of method referred to use, and method referred to progression whereof the one may be termed magistral, and the other of probation. The latter whereof seemeth to be " via deserta et interclusa.” For, as knowledges are now delivered, there is a kind of contract of error between the deliverer and the receiver: for he that delivereth knowledge desireth to deliver it in such form as may be best believed, and not as may be best examined; and he that receiveth knowledge desireth rather present satisfaction than expectant inquiry; and so rather not to doubt than not to err: glory making the author not to lay open his weakness, and sloth making the disciple not to know his strength. But knowledge that is delivered as a thread to be spun on ought to be delivered and intimated, if it were possible, in the same method wherein it was invented; and so is it possible of knowledge induced. But in this same anticipated and prevented knowledge no man knoweth how he came to the knowledge which he hath obtained. But yet, nevertheless, " secundum majus et minus,"† a man may revisit and descend * A desert and secluded way. According to its being greater or less. unto the foundations of his knowledge and consent; and so transplant it into another, as it grew in his own mind. For it is in knowledges as it is in plants: if you mean to use the plant, it is no matter for the roots; but if you mean to remove it to grow, then it is more assured to rest upon roots than slips; so the delivery of knowledges, as it is now used, is as of fair bodies of trees without the roots-good for the carpenter, but not for the planter. But if you will have sciences grow, it is less matter for the shaft or body of the tree, so you look well to the taking up of the roots: of which kind of delivery the method of the mathematics, in that subject, hath some shadow. This genuine method, Bacon adds, he does not find to be generally either in use, or sought after. In the Advancement he calls it, in a marginal note, Methodus Sincera, sive ad Filios Scientiarum (the True Method, or that for the Sons of Science); in the De Augmentis it is more quaintly termed the Tradition of the Lamp, or the Method for the Sons (Traditio Lampadis, sive Methodus ad Filios). From the observations that follow upon other diversities of method, it will be sufficient to select a paragraph or two. The following is nearly the same in the Latin as in the English: Another diversity of method, whereof the consequence is great, is the delivery of knowledge in aphorisms, or in methods; wherein we may observe that it hath been too much taken into custom, out of a few axioms or observations upon any subject to make a solemn and formal art, filling it with some discourses, and illustrating it with examples, and digesting it into a sensible method: but the writing in aphorisms hath many excellent virtues, whereto the writing in method doth not approach. For first, it trieth the writer, whether he be superficial or solid; for aphorisms, except they should be ridiculous, cannot be made but of the pith and heart of sciences; for discourse of illustration is cut off; recitals of examples are cut off; discourse of connexion and order is cut off; descriptions of practice are cut off; so there remaineth nothing to fill the aphorisms but some good quantity of observation: and therefore no man can suffice, nor in reason will attempt to write aphorisms, but he that is sound and grounded. But in methods, Tantum series juncturaque pollet, Tantum de medio sumptis accedit honoris :* as a man shall make a great show of an art which, if it were disjointed, would come to little. Secondly, methods are more fit to win consent or belief, but less fit to point to action: for they carry a kind of demonstration in orb or circle, one part illuminating another, and therefore satisfy; but particulars, being dispersed, do best agree with dispersed directions. And lastly, aphorisms, representing a knowledge broken, do invite men to inquire farther; whereas methods, carrying the show of a total, do secure men, as if they were at farthest. "I have This last view was a favourite with Bacon. heard his lordship say also," writes Rawley, in his Preface to the Sylva Sylvarum, "that one great reason why he would not put these particulars [the facts collected in that work] into any exact method (though he that looketh attentively into them shall find that they have a secret order) was because he conceived that other men would now think that they could do the like, and so go on with a further collection; which, if the method had been exact, many would have despaired to attain by imitation." The Third Chapter is devoted to the subject of Rhetoric, or the doctrine of the Illustration and Adornment of Discourse; and the additions in the De Augmentis extend it to nearly ten times its length in the original English treatise. The beginning, however, is nearly the same as in the Advancement : Now we descend to that part which concerneth the illustration of tradition, comprehended in that science which we call Rhetoric, or art of eloquence; a science excellent, and excellently well laboured. For although in true value it is inferior to wisdom, (as it is said by God to Moses, when he disabled himself for want of this faculty, "Aaron shall be thy speaker, and thou shalt be to him as God,") yet with people it is the more mighty: for so Solomon saith, "Sapiens corde appella * Skill and arrangement can such charms bestow bitur prudens, sed dulcis eloquio majora reperiet ;"* signifying that profoundness of wisdom will help a man to a name or admiration, but that it is eloquence that prevaileth in an active life. And so as to the labouring of it, the emulation of Aristotle with the rhetoricians of his time, and the experience of Cicero, hath made them in their works of rhetorics exceed themselves. Again the excellency of examples of eloquence in the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, added to the perfection of the precepts of eloquence, hath doubled the progression in this art; and therefore the deficiencies which I shall note will rather be in some collections, which may as handmaids attend the art, than in the rules or use of the art itself. Notwithstanding, to stir the earth a little about the roots of this science, as we have done of the rest; the duty and office of Rhetoric is to apply reason to imagination for the better moving of the will. For we see reason is disturbed in the administration thereof by three means: by illaqueation or sophism, which pertains to logic; by imagination or impression, which pertains to rhetoric; and by passion or affection, which pertains to morality. And as, in negotiation with others, men are wrought by cunning, by importunity, and by vehemency; so, in this negotiation within ourselves, men are undermined by inconsequences, solicited and importuned by impressions or observations, and transported by passions. Neither is the nature of man so unfortunately built as that those powers and arts should have force to disturb reason, and not to establish and advance it: for the end of logic is to teach a form of argument to secure reason and not to entrap it; the end of morality is to procure the affections to obey reason, and not to invade it; the end of Rhetoric is to fill the imagination, to second reason, and not to oppress it: for these abuses of arts come in but "ex obliquo,"t for caution. And therefore it was great injustice in Plato, though springing out of a just hatred of the rhetoricians of his time, to esteem of Rhetoric but as a voluptuary art, resembling it to cookery that did mar wholesome meats, and help unwholesome by variety of sauces to the pleasure of the taste. For we see that speech is much more conversant in adorning that which is good than in colouring that which is evil; for there is no man *The wise in heart shall be called prudent; but the sweet in speech shall attain greater things. + Incidentally. |