It was a favourite text of Bacon’s, “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; it is the glory of the King (a man) to find it out.” [Prov. xxv. 2.]
Was not this very much like placing man almost on a parity with God, and exalting him into a god? And again, even misquoting to suit his lofty notions of man’s capabilities: “The spirit of man is as the lamp of God, wherewith He searches every secret.”[[34]] [Prov. xx. 27.] Surely, too, the aim of him who describes the sole end of his philosophy in the following words, is not different from that of him who urges his disciples “to fix their minds on the contemplation of the immutable essences of things.” “The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things, and the enlarging the bounds of human empire to the effecting of all things possible.”[[35]]
Neither does he differ at all from the philosophy of the Academy in his appreciation of pure truth. “Truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of Truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it; the knowledge of Truth, which is the presence of it; and the belief of Truth, which is the enjoying of it—is the sovereign good of human nature. The poet saith excellently well: ‘It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea; a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below; but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of Truth, and to see the errors and wanderings, and mist and tempests in the sea below;’[[36]] so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride. Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man’s mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of Truth.”[[37]] Is this the language of one who had no higher aim than “to supply man’s vulgar wants, and whose eye was ever on a mark which was placed on earth and within bow-shot?” No! long since must Bacon have been forgotten, if his philosophy had had no higher end than that which modern utilitarianism deems its proudest boast.
One more extract will suffice to evince, that in promoting the proper study of his favourite science, Natural Philosophy, he had far higher views than mere utilitarianism; though this was to be regarded by the way and as an accident of no mean importance. “All knowledge, and especially that of natural philosophy, tendeth highly to the glory of God in His power, providence and benefits appearing and engraven in His works, which without this knowledge are beheld but as through a veil, for if the heavens in the body of them do declare the glory of God to the eye, much more do they in the rule and decrees of them declare it to the understanding.”[[38]]
An apology is needed for this long episode on Bacon, and our apology must be an anxious desire to direct the student back from the false school of Baconism to the master himself. Leave the Macaulays, the Herschels and the Playfairs to the work—and an important and useful work it is—for which they are fitted; but do you endeavour so to mind earthly things that you forget not heavenly things.[[39]] We say not, as did the ancient philosophers, disregard earthly things; but, while attending to them, forget not the heavenly, as the utilitarians do. Neither would it have been necessary to have entered so fully into the matter had we not been aware that of the thousands who pretend to tread in the steps of Bacon, not above one or two have ever read his more important works, but take their notions of his philosophy from such crude and partial views as the merest utilitarians choose to enunciate as Baconian.
We require no other proof of the degeneracy of modern mind from the close habits of intense thought which distinguished the predecessors and cotemporaries of Bacon, than the melancholy fact, that while the Novum Organum and De Augmentis were, in the author’s time, eagerly read by every one pretending to a liberal education, and at once elevated him to a high rank among literary men, they are scarcely ever opened in the present day, “and though much talked of are but little read. They have produced, indeed, a vast effect on the opinions of mankind, but they have produced it through the operation of intermediate agents.”[[40]] Of these intermediate agents we have given a few specimens; and as long as the world submits to receive their version of Baconism, so long will Baconism elevate Knowledge at the expense of True Wisdom. Let men return to Bacon, and take all that he teaches instead of part—the inferior part—and there will be nothing for Wisdom or Knowledge to fear.
CHAPTER VI.
OF THE JEWISH NOSE.
Class IV.—The Jewish, or Hawk Nose, is very convex, and preserves its convexity like a bow, throughout the whole length from the eyes to the tip. It is thin and sharp.
It indicates considerable Shrewdness in worldly matters; and deep insight into character, and facility of turning that insight to profitable account.
This is a good, useful, practical Nose, very able to carry its owner successfully through the world, that is as success is now-a-days measured, by weight of purse; nevertheless it will not elevate him to any very exalted pitch of intellectuality.