2 g BACON 



stituted a middle kind, for human honors were inferior to honors 

 heroical and divine. Antiquity observed this difference in their 

 distribution, that whereas founders of states, lawgivers, extirp- 

 ers of tyrants, fathers of the people, and other eminent persons 

 in civil merit, were honored but with the titles of heroes, or 

 demigods, such as Hercules, Theseus, Minos, Romulus, etc. 

 Inventors, and authors of new arts or discoveries for the ser- 

 vice of human life, were ever advanced amongst the gods, as in 

 the case of Ceres, Bacchus, Mercury, Apollo, and others. And 

 this appears to have been done with great justice and judgment, 

 for the merits of the former being generally confined within the 

 circle of one age or nation, are but like fruitful showers, which 

 serve only for a season and a small extent, whilst the others are 

 like the benefits of the sun, permanent and universal. Again, 

 the former are mixed with strife and contention, whilst the latter 

 have the true character of the Divine presence, as coming in a 

 gentle gale without noise or tumult. 



The merit of learning in remedying the inconveniences aris- 

 ing from man to man, is not much inferior to that of relieving 

 human necessities. This merit was livelily described by the an- 

 cients in the fiction of Orpheus's theatre, where all the beasts 

 and birds assembled, and forgetting their several appetites, 

 stood sociably together listening to the harp, whose sound no 

 sooner ceased, or was drowned by a louder, but they all returned 

 to their respective natures ; for thus men are full of savage and 

 unreclaimed desires, which as long as we hearken to precepts, 

 laws, and religion, sweetly touched with eloquence and persua- 

 sion, so long are society and peace maintained ; but if these in- 

 struments become silent, or seditions and tumult drown their 

 music, all things fall back to confusion and anarchy. 



This appears more manifestly when princes or governors are 

 learned ; for, though he might be thought partial to his profes- 

 sion who said : " States would then be happy, when either kings 

 were philosophers, or philosophers kings ; "k yet so much is 

 verified by experience, that the best times have happened under 

 wise and learned princes; for though kings may have their 

 errors and vices, like other men, yet if they are illuminated by 

 learning, they constantly retain such notions of religion, policy, 

 and morality, as may preserve them from destructive and 

 irremediable errors or excesses ; for these notions will whisper 

 to them, even whilst counsellors and servants stand mute. Such 



