NOTE 3 M. 



the 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 practices, and to the immediate and apparent causes, 

 and as the prophet saith, &quot; have sacrificed to their own nets,&quot; 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 com 

 bined with folly and ignorance, seeing nothing can be more justly allotted to be 

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



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

 Sacrae, 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 

 just quoted from the Advancement of Learning. 



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

 this edition there is an essay on Atheism, containing the very same sentiments ; 

 and in 1625, the year before his death, he published another edition of his 

 Essays, in which there are additions and alterations, and considerable improve 

 ments of the essay on Atheism, but a repetition of the same opinions. He 

 says, in his sixteenth essay, which is &quot; Of Atheism,&quot; &quot; I had rather believe all 

 the fables in the legend and the Talmud and the Alcoran, than that this uni 

 versal frame is without a mind ; and therefore God never wrought miracle to 

 convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it. It is true that a 

 little philosophy inclines man s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy 

 bringeth men s minds about to religion ; for while the mind of man looketh 

 upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go no further ; 

 but when it beholdeth the chain of them confederate and linked together, it 

 must needs fly to providence and deity.&quot; 



3 M. Life, p. xlii. 



To my Lord of Essex. 



My singular good Lord, Your lordship s so honourable minding my poor 

 fortune, the last year, in the very entrance into that great action, (which is a 

 time of less leisure ; and in so liberal an allowance of your care, as to write 

 three letters to stir me up friends in your absence, doth, after a sort, warrant me 

 not to object to myself your present quantity of affairs, whereby to silence my 

 self from petition of the like favour. I brake with your lordship myself at the 

 Tower ; and I take it, my brother hath since renewed the same motion, touching 

 a fortune I was in thought to attempt, in genere ceconomico. In genere politico, 

 certain cross winds have blown contrary. My suit to your lordship is, for your 

 several letters to be left with me, dormant, to the gentlewoman and either of 

 her parents. Wherein I do not doubt, but as the beams of your favour have 

 often dissolved the coldness of my fortune, so in this argument your lordship 

 will do the like with your pen. My desire is also, that your lordship would 

 vouchsafe unto me, as out of your care, a general letter to my Lord Keeper, 

 for his lordship s holding me from you recommended, both in the course of my 

 practice, and in the course of my employment in her majesty s service ; 

 wherein, if your lordship shall, in any antithesis or relation affirm, that his 

 lordship shall have no less fruit of me than of any other whom he may cherish, 

 I hope your lordship shall engage yourself for no impossibility. Lastly, and 

 chiefly, I know not whether I shall attain to see your lordship before your 

 noble journey ; for ceremonies are things infinitely inferior to my love and to 

 my zeal. This let me, with your allowance, say unto you by pen. It is true 

 that in my well meaning advices, out of my love to your lordship, and, perhaps, 

 out of the state of mine own minde, I have sometimes persuaded a course dif 

 fering : Ac tibi pro tutis insignia fact a placebunt : Be it so : yet remember, that 

 the signing of your name is nothing, unless it be to some good patent or charter, 

 whereby your country may be endowed with good and benefit. Which I speak 



