CXXV1 LIFE OF BACON. 



ledge, Bacon could delude himself by the supposition 

 that his fulsome dedication to the King was consistent 

 either with the simplicity or dignity of philosophy, he must 

 have forgotten what Seneca said to Nero, &quot; Suffer me to 

 stay here a little longer with thee, not to flatter thine ear, 

 for that is not my custom, as I have always preferred to 

 offend by truth than to please by flattery.&quot; He must have 

 forgotten that when .ZEsop said to Solon, &quot; Either we must 

 not come to princes, or we must seek to please and content 

 them; Solon, answered, &quot;Either we must not come to 

 princes at all, or we must speak truly and counsel them 

 for the best.&quot; He must have forgotten his own doctrine, 

 that books ought to have no patrons but truth and reason, (c) 



I am dead ;&quot; but not content with this, he imagined that the protection of 

 kings was necessary for the protection of truth, forgetting his own doctrine 

 that, &quot; veritas temporis filia dicitur non authoritatis.&quot; 



In his letter of the 12th of October, 1620, to the King, he says, 

 speaking of the Novum Organum : &quot; This work is but a new body of 

 clay, whereinto your Majesty, by your countenance and protection, may 

 breathe life. And, to tell your Majesty truly what I think, I account your 

 favour may be to this work as much as an hundred years time : for I am 

 persuaded, the work will gain upon men s minds in ages, but your gracing 

 it may make it take hold more swiftly : which I would be very glad of, it 

 being a work meant, not for praise or glory, but for practice, and the good 

 of men.&quot; 



If this opinion of the necessity of the King s protection, or of any 

 patronage, for the progress of knowledge, be now supposed a weakness : if 

 in these times, and in this enlightened country, truth has nothing to dread : 

 if Galileo may now, without fear of the inquisition, assert that the earth 

 moves round ; or when an altar is raised to the &quot; unknown God/ 7 he who 

 is ignorantly worshipped, we may declare; let us not be unmindful of the 

 present state of the press in our countries, or forget that, although Bacon 

 saw a little ray of distant light, yet that it was seen from far, the refraction 

 of truth yet below the horizon. 



(c) &quot; But in the mean time I have no purpose to give allowance to some 

 conditions and courses base and unworthy, wherein divers professors of 

 learning have wronged themselves, and gone too far; such as were those 

 trencher philosophers, which in the later age of the Roman state were 



