RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. CCCCxliii 



his thoughts to him who placeth his bow in the heavens. 

 &quot; Very beautiful it is in the brightness thereof: it com- 

 passeth the heaven about with a glorious circle, and the 

 hand of the Most High hath bended it.&quot; 



Hence, therefore, Bacon said in his youth, and repeated 

 in his age, (a) &quot; it is an assured truth, and a conclusion 



() His sentiments were formed at an early period of his life, and 

 continued to his death. 



In a small volume which he published when he was thirty-seven years 

 of age, there is a meditation upon Atheism. It was published in Latin in 

 1597, and in English in 1598. The work is &quot; Meditationes Sacra.&quot; A 

 portion of his meditation on Atheism is as follows : &quot; The fool hath said 

 in his heart there is no God. First, it is to be noted, that the scripture 

 saith, &amp;lt; The fool hath said in his heart, and not thought in his heart/ It is 

 a fool that hath so said in his heart, which is most true ; not only in respect 

 that he hath no taste in those things which are supernatural and divine, but 

 in respect of human and civil wisdom : for first of all, if you mark the wits 

 and dispositions which are inclined to atheism, you shall find them light, 

 scoffing, impudent, and vain; briefly of such a constitution as is most 

 contrary to wisdom and moral gravity. Secondly, amongst statesmen and 

 politics, those which have been of greatest depths and compass, and of 

 largest and most universal understanding, have not only in cunning made 

 their profit in seeming religious to the people, but in truth have been 

 touched with an inward sense of the knowledge of deity, as they which you 

 shall evermore note to have attributed much to fortune and providence. 

 Contrariwise, those who ascribed all things to their own cunning and prac 

 tices, and to the immediate and apparent causes, and as the prophet saith, 

 * have sacrificed to their own nets, have been always but petty counterfeit 

 statesmen, and not capable of the greatest actions. Lastly, this I dare 

 affirm in knowledge of nature, that a little natural philosophy, and the first 

 entrance into it, doth dispose the opinion to atheism ; but on the other side, 

 much natural philosophy and wading deep into it will bring about men s 

 minds to religion ; wherefore atheism every way seems to be joined and 

 combined with folly and ignorance, seeing nothing can be more justly 

 allotted to be the saying of fools than this, There is no God. &quot; 



The first edition of his Essays, which was published with the Medi 

 tationes Sacra, in 1597, does not contain any essay upon Atheism. The 

 next time the subject is mentioned by Lord Bacon is in 1605, in the 

 passage which I have cited from the Advancement of Learning. 



In 1612 Lord Bacon published an enlarged edition of his Essays, and 



