Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

TACTICS TO COUNTER ENVY 195
Francis Bacon
Bacon's ninth essay, which is also one of the longest of the fifty-eight, is
entitled Of Envy. In some of the other essays, too, he stresses the role of
envy in human activity, against which he warns us, advising us how best
to guard against it, as in the essays on ambition, bodily deformity and
seditions and troubles, for example.
As many of Bacon's biographers and commentators on his Essays have
pointed out, there is no doubt that he himself suffered the effects of other
people's envy and observed it among his fellow courtiers. His discussion
of the problem of envy, which he saw as one of the most ineluctable and
fundamental factors of social life, contains rules of great importance
concerning envy and its avoidance, while with unerring sociological
vision he lays bare the essentials.
Bacon begins by discussing the evil eye, which may stem from envy
and can be synonymous with it, and draws attention to the relationship
between envy and witchcraft. It is improbable that Bacon believed that
envy was based on witchcraft, as nearly all primitive peoples do; he
simply recalled this primal motive for sorcery. 2 Whether this is meant to
be ironic or serious is irrelevant. Since the envious act contains an
element of witchcraft, the only way envy can be averted is by the method
used in a case of sorcery or an evil spell. Thus, he says,
the wiser sort of great persons bring in ever upon the stage of life somebody
upon whom to derive the envy that would come upon themselves; sometimes
upon ministers and servants; sometimes upon colleagues and associates;
and the like; and for that turn there are never wanting some persons of
violent and undertaking natures, who, so they may have power and business,
will take it at any cost. 3
Tactics to counter envy
While the tactics recommended by Bacon for countering envy are always
applicable, they have seldom been as clearly discerned as here. His
2 R Bacon, The Essays of Counsels, Civil and Moral, ed. S. H. Reynolds, Oxford,
1890, p. 56.
3 Op. cit., p. 60.