Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

180 FRANCIS BACON
substance; l they satisfy their minds with the deepest fallacies.
The methods and frameworks which I have hitherto seen, there
is none of any worth, all of them carry in their titles the face
of a school and not of a world, having vulgar and pedantical
divisions, not such as pierce the heart of things."
Then, for the art of memory, " the inquiry seems hitherto to
have heen pursued weakly and languidly enough; ... it is a
harreu thing, as now applied for human uses. The feats of
memory now taught, I do esteem no more than I do the tricks and
antics of clowns and rope-dancers 1 matters, 2 perhaps of strangeness,
hut not of worth. ''
Passing from natural and physical science to philology, or, as
Bacon calls it, " philosophic grammar, " we again find it " set
down as wanting." " Grammar," he says, " is the harbinger of
other sciences— an office not indeed very noble, hut very
necessary, especially as sciences, in our age, are principally
drawn from the learned languages, and are not learned in our
mother's tongue. . . . Grammar, likewise, is of two sorts—the
one being literary, the other philosophical. " The first of these
is used chiefly in the study of foreign tongues, especially in the
dead languages, hut " the other ministers to philosophy." This
reminds him that Csesar wrote some hooks on " analogy, " and
a doubt occurs whether they treated of this kind of philosophical
grammar. Suspecting, however, that they did not contain anything
subtle or lofty, he takes the hint as to another deficiency,
and thinks " of a kind of grammar which should diligently
inquire, not the analogy of words with one another, hut the
analogy between words and things, or reason, not going so far
as that interpretation which belongs to logic. Certainly words
are the footsteps of reason, and the footsteps tell something
about the body. . . . The noblest kind of grammar, as I think,
would be this: If some one well seen in a number of tongues,
1 Compare: "He takes false shadows for true substances." (Tit. And. iii. 2.)
"Tour falsehood shall become you well to worship shadows and adore false
shapes." (Tw. G. Ver. iv. 1, 123-131.) Mer. Wiv. ii. 2, 215. Mer. Yen. iii. 2,
126-130; and comp. 1. 73-80. Richard II. ii. 2, 14. 1 Henry VI. ii. 3, 62, 63.
2 This line seems to throw light upon Petrueio's powers of vituperative
rhetoric— "He'll rail in his rope tricks." (Tarn. Sh. i. 2.)