THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY2 The Lives and Opinions

no THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY
science, and have made their little peninsula the center of the world.
"Men are not animals erect/' said Bacon, "but immortal gods." "The
Creator has given us souls equal to all the world, and yet satiable not even
with a world." Everything is possible to man. Time is young; give us
some little centuries, and we shall control and remake all things. We
shall perhaps at last learn the noblest lesson of all, that man must not
fight man, but must make war only on the obstacles that nature offers to
the triumph of man. "It will not be amiss, 95
writes Bacon, in one of his
finest passages, "to distinguish the three kinds, and as it were grades, of
ambition in mankind. The first is of those who desire to extend their
power in their native country; which kind is vulgar and degenerate. The
second is of those who labor to extend the power of their country and its
dominion among men; this certainly has more dignity, but not less
covetousness. But if a man endeavor to establish and extend the power
and dominion of the human race itself over the universe, his ambition is
without doubt both a more wholesome thing and a nobler than the
other two." 111 It was Bacon's fate to be torn to pieces by these hostile
ambitions struggling for his soul.
VI. EPILOGUE
"Men in great place are thrice servants; servants to the sovereign or
state, servants of fame, and servants of business, so as they have no freedom,
neither in their persons nor in their action, nor in their time. . . ,
The rising unto place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater
pains; and it is sometimes base, and by indignities men come to dignities.
The standing is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall or at least
an eclipse." 112 What a wistful summary of Bacon's epilogue!
"A man's shortcomings," said Goethe, "are taken from his epoch; his
virtues and greatness belong to himself." This seems a little unfair to the
Zeitgeist, but it is exceptionally just in the case of Bacon. Abbott, 113 after
a painstaking study of the morals prevalent at Elizabeth's court, concludes
that all the leading figures, male and female, were disciples of Machia-
velli. Roger Ascham described in doggerel the four cardinal virtues in
demand at the court of the Queen :
Cog, lie, flatter and face,
Four ways in Court to win men grace.
If thou be thrall to none of these,
Away, good Piers! Home, John Cheese!
It was one of the customs of those lively days for judges to take
"presents" from persons trying cases in their courts. Bacon was not above
the age in this matter; and his tendency to keep his expenditure several
Org., i, 129. "^Essay "Of Great Place." ^Francis Bacon, ch.