NOTE C C C. 



losophy, because the author dissenteth in religion ; no more than they do by 

 Aristotle or Averroes. My great work goeth forward ; and after my manner, I 

 alter ever when I add. So that nothing is finished till all be finished. This I 

 have written in the midst of a term and parliament ; thinking no time so pos 

 sessed, but that I should talk of these matters with so good and dear a friend. 

 And so with my wonted wishes I leave you to God s goodness. r 



&quot; From Gray s Inn, Feb. 27, 1610.&quot; 



And in his letter to Father Fulgentio, giving some account of his writings, 

 he says, &quot; My Essays will not only be enlarged in number, but still more in 

 substance. Along with them goes the little piece De Sapientia Veterum. &quot; 



Bacon s sentiments with respect to these fables may be found in the &quot; Ad 

 vancement of Learning,&quot; and in the &quot; De Augmentis,&quot; under the head of 

 Poetry. 



In the &quot; Advancement of Learning&quot; he says, &quot; There remaineth yet another 

 use of poesy parabolical, opposite to that which we last mentioned : for that 

 tendeth to demonstrate and illustrate that which is taught or delivered, and this 

 other to retire and obscure it : that is, when the secrets and mysteries of 

 religion, policy, or philosophy, are involved in fables or parables. Of this in 

 divine poesy we see the use is authorized. In heathen poesy we see the expo 

 sition of fables doth fall out sometimes with great felicity ; as in the fable that 

 the giants being overthrown in their war against the gods, the Earth, their 

 mother, in revenge thereof brought forth fame : 



Illam Terra parens, ira irritate deorum, 

 Extremam, ut perhibent, Cceo Enceladoque sororem 

 Progenuit,&quot; 



expounded, that when princes and monarchs have suppressed actual and open 

 rebels, then the malignity of the people, which is the IT other of rebellion, doth 

 bring forth libels and slanders, and taxations of the state, which is of the same 

 kind with rebellion, but more feminine. So in the fable, that the rest of the 

 gods having conspired to bind Jupiter, Pallas called Briareus with his hundred 

 hands to his aid, expounded, that monarchies need not fear any curbing of 

 their absoluteness by mighty subjects, as long as by wisdom they keep the 

 hearts of the people, who will be sure to come in on their side. So in the fable, 

 that Achilles was brought up under Chiron the centaur, who was part a man 

 and part a beast, expounded ingeniously, but corruptly by Machiavel, that it 

 belongeth to the education and discipline of princes to know as well how to 

 play the part of the lion in violence, and the fox in guile, as of the man in 

 virtue and justice. Nevertheless, in many the like encounters, I do rather 

 think that the fable was first, and the exposition then devised, than that the 

 moral was first, and thereupon the fable framed. For I find it was an ancient 

 vanity in Chrysippus, that troubled himself with great contention to fasten the 

 assertions of the Stoics upon the fictions of the ancient poets ; but yet that all 

 the fables and fictions of the poets were but pleasure and not figure, I interpose 

 no opinion. Surely of those poets which are now extant, even Homer himself, 

 (notwithstanding he was made a kind of Scripture by the latter schools of the 

 Grecians,) yet I should without any difficulty pronounce that his fables had no 

 such inwardness in his own meaning ; but what they might have upon a more 

 original tradition, is not easy to affirm ; for he was not the inventor of many of 

 them.&quot; 



In the treatise &quot; De Augmentis,&quot; the same sentiments will be found with a 

 slight alteration in the expressions. He says, &quot; there is another use of para 

 bolical poesy, opposite to the former, which tendeth to the folding up of those 

 things, the dignity whereof deserves to be retired and distinguished, as with a 

 drawn curtain : that is, when the secrets and mysteries of religion, policy, and 

 philosophy are veiled and invested with fables and parables. But whether 

 there be any mystical sense couched under the ancient fables of the poets, may 

 admit some doubt: and indeed for our part we incline to this opinion, as to 

 think that there was an infused mystery in many of the ancient fables of the 



