Francis Bacon - The Essays 1601
OF VICISSITUDE OF THINGS
Solomon saith,
There is no new
thing upon the earth.
So that as Plato had an imagination,
That all knowledge was but remembrance;
so Solomon giveth his sentence,
That all novelty is but oblivion.
Whereby you may see,
that the river of
Lethe runneth as well
above ground as below.
There is an abstruse astrologer that saith,
If it were not
for two things that are constant (the one is,
that the fixed stars
ever stand a like
distance one from another,
and never come nearer together,
nor go further asunder; the other,
that the diurnal motion perpetually keepeth time),
no individual would last one moment. Certain it is,
that the matter is
in a perpetual flux,
and never at a stay. The great winding-sheets,
that bury all things in oblivion, are two; deluges and earthquakes.
As for conflagrations and great droughts,
they do not merely dispeople and destroy. Phadton's
car went but a day.
And the three years'
drought in the time of Elias, was but particular,
and left people alive.
As for the great burnings by lightnings,
which are often in the West Indies,
they are but narrow.
But in the other two destructions,
by deluge and earthquake,
it is further to be noted,
that the remnant of
people which hap to be reserved,
are commonly ignorant and mountainous people,
that can give no
account of the time past;
so that the oblivion is all one,
as if none had been left.
If you consider well
of the people of the West Indies,
it is very probable
that they are a
newer or a younger people,
than the people of the Old World.
And it is much more likely,
that the destruction that
hath heretofore been there,
was not by earthquakes (as
the Egyptian priest told
Solon concerning the island of Atlantis,
that it was swallowed by an earthquake),
but rather that it
was desolated by a particular deluge.
For earthquakes are seldom in those parts.
But on the other side,
they have such pouring rivers,
as the rivers of
Asia and Africk and Europe,
are but brooks to them. Their Andes, likewise, or mountains,
are far higher than those with us; whereby it seems,
that the remnants of generation of men,
were in such a particular deluge saved.
As for the observation that Machiavel hath,
that the jealousy of sects,
doth much extinguish the memory of things;
traducing Gregory the Great,
that he did what in him lay,
to extinguish all heathen antiquities;
I do not find
that those zeals do any great effects, nor last long;
as it appeared in
the succession of Sabinian,
who did revive the former antiquities.
The vicissitude of mutations
in the superior globe,
are no fit matter
for this present argument. It may be, Plato's great year,
if the world should last so long,
would have some effect;
not in renewing the
state of like individuals (for
that is the fume of those,
that conceive the celestial
bodies have more accurate
influences upon these things below,
than indeed they have), but in gross. Comets, out of question,
have likewise power and effect,
over the gross and mass of things;
but they are rather gazed upon,
and waited upon in their journey,
than wisely observed in their effects;
specially in their respective effects; that is,
what kind of comet, for magnitude, color,
version of the beams,
placing in the reign of heaven, or lasting,
produceth what kind of effects.
There is a toy
which I have heard,
and I would not
have it given over,
but waited upon a little.
They say it is
observed in the Low Countries (I
know not in what part)
that every five and thirty years,
the same kind and
suit of years and
weathers come about again; as great frosts, great wet, great droughts, warm winters,
summers with little heat, and the like;
and they call it the Prime.
It is a thing
I do the rather mention, because, computing backwards,
I have found some concurrence.
But to leave these points of nature,
and to come to men.
greatest vicissitude of things amongst men,
is the vicissitude of sects and religions.
For those orbs rule in men's minds most.
The true religion is
built upon the rock;
the rest are tossed,
upon the waves of time. To speak, therefore,
of the causes of new sects;
and to give some counsel concerning them,
as far as the
weakness of human judgment can give stay,
to so great revolutions.
When the religion formerly received,
is rent by discords;
and when the holiness
of the professors of religion,
is decayed and full of scandal;
and withal the times be stupid, ignorant, and barbarous;
you may doubt the
springing up of a new sect; if then also,
there should arise any
extravagant and strange spirit,
to make himself author thereof.
All which points held,
when Mahomet published his law.
If a new sect
have not two properties, fear it not;
for it will not spread.
The one is the supplanting, or the opposing, of authority established;
for nothing is more popular than that.
The other is the
giving license to pleasures,
and a voluptuous life.
For as for speculative heresies (such
as were in ancient times the Arians,
and now the Arminians),
though they work mightily upon men's wits,
yet they do not
produce any great alterations in states;
except it be by
the help of civil occasions.
There be three manner
of plantations of new sects.
By the power of signs and miracles; by the eloquence, and wisdom,
of speech and persuasion;
and by the sword. For martyrdoms,
I reckon them amongst miracles;
because they seem to
exceed the strength of human nature:
and I may do the like,
of superlative and admirable holiness of life.
Surely there is no better way,
to stop the rising
of new sects and schisms,
than to reform abuses;
to compound the smaller differences; to proceed mildly,
and not with sanguinary persecutions;
and rather to take
off the principal authors
by winning and advancing them,
than to enrage them
by violence and bitterness.
The changes and vicissitude
in wars are many;
but chiefly in three things;
in the seats or
stages of the war; in the weapons;
and in the manner of the conduct.
Wars in ancient time,
seemed more to move
from east to west; for the Persians, Assyrians, Arabians, Tartars (which were the invaders)
were all eastern people. It is true,
the Gauls were western;
but we read but
of two incursions of theirs:
the one to Gallo-Grecia,
the other to Rome.
But east and west
have no certain points of heaven;
and no more have
the wars either from
the east or west,
any certainty of observation.
But north and south are fixed;
and it hath seldom
or never been seen
that the far southern
people have invaded the northern, but contrariwise.
Whereby it is manifest
that the northern tract of the world,
is in nature the more martial region:
be it in respect
of the stars of that hemisphere;
or of the great
continents that are upon the north,
whereas the south part,
for aught that is known,
is almost all sea; or (which is most apparent)
of the cold of the northern parts,
which is that which,
without aid of discipline,
doth make the bodies hardest,
and the courages warmest.
Upon the breaking and
shivering of a great state and empire,
you may be sure to have wars. For great empires, while they stand,
do enervate and destroy
the forces of the
natives which they have subdued,
resting upon their own protecting forces;
and then when they fail also,
all goes to ruin,
and they become a prey.
So was it in
the decay of the Roman empire;
and likewise in the empire of Almaigne,
after Charles the Great,
every bird taking a feather;
and were not unlike
to befall to Spain,
if it should break.
The great accessions and unions of kingdoms,
do likewise stir up wars;
for when a state
grows to an over-power,
it is like a great flood,
that will be sure to overflow.
As it hath been
seen in the states of Rome, Turkey, Spain, and others.
Look when the world
hath fewest barbarous peoples,
but such as commonly
will not marry or generate,
except they know means to live (as
it is almost everywhere at this day, except Tartary),
there is no danger
of inundations of people;
but when there be
great shoals of people,
which go on to populate,
without foreseeing means of life and sustentation,
it is of necessity
that once in an age or two,
they discharge a portion
of their people upon other nations;
which the ancient northern
people were wont to do by lot;
casting lots what part
should stay at home,
and what should seek their fortunes.
When a warlike state
grows soft and effeminate,
they may be sure of a war.
For commonly such states
are grown rich in
the time of their degenerating;
and so the prey inviteth,
and their decay in valor, encourageth a war.
As for the weapons,
it hardly falleth under rule and observation:
yet we see even they,
have returns and vicissitudes.
For certain it is,
that ordnance was known
in the city of
the Oxidrakes in India; and was that,
which the Macedonians called thunder and lightning, and magic.
And it is well
known that the use of ordnance,
hath been in China
above two thousand years.
The conditions of weapons, and their improvement, are; First,
the fetching afar off;
for that outruns the danger;
as it is seen
in ordnance and muskets. Secondly,
the strength of the percussion;
wherein likewise ordnance do
exceed all arietations and ancient inventions. The third is,
the commodious use of them;
as that they may
serve in all weathers;
that the carriage may
be light and manageable; and the like.
For the conduct of the war: at the first,
men rested extremely upon number:
they did put the
wars likewise upon main force and valor;
pointing days for pitched fields,
and so trying it
out upon an even
match and they were
more ignorant in ranging
and arraying their battles. After,
they grew to rest
upon number rather competent, than vast;
they grew to advantages of place, cunning diversions, and the like:
and they grew more
skilful in the ordering of their battles.
In the youth of a state, arms do flourish;
in the middle age of a state, learning;
and then both of
them together for a time;
in the declining age of a state,
mechanical arts and merchandize.
Learning hath his infancy,
when it is but
beginning and almost childish; then his youth,
when it is luxuriant and juvenile;
then his strength of years,
when it is solid and reduced; and lastly, his old age,
when it waxeth dry and exhaust.
But it is not
good to look too
long upon these turning wheels of vicissitude,
lest we become giddy.
As for the philology of them,
that is but a circle of tales,
and therefore not fit for this writing.
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