30 BACON 



his life, was long and unruffled by storms. Lucius Commodus, 

 though not so perfect as his brother, succeeded many of the 

 emperors in virtue. Marcus, formed by nature to be the model 

 of every excellence, was so faultless, that Silenus, when he took 

 his seat at the banquet of the gods, found nothing to carp at in 

 him but his patience in humoring his wife./' Thus, in the suc- 

 cession of these six princes, we may witness the happy fruits of 

 learning in sovereignty painted in the great table of the world. 



Nor has learning a less influence on military genius than on 

 merit employed in the state, as may be observed in the lives of 

 Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, a few examples of which 

 it will not be impertinent here to notice. 



Alexander was bred under Aristotle,? certainly a great philos- 

 opher, who dedicated several of his treatises to him. He was 

 accompanied by Calisthenes and several other learned persons 

 both in his travels and conquests. The value this great mon- 

 arch set upon learning appears in the envy he expressed of 

 Achilles's great fortune in having so good a trumpet of his 

 actions and prowess as Homer's verses ; in the judgment he gave 

 concerning what object was most worthy to be inclosed in the 

 cabinet of Darius found among his spoils, which decided the 

 question in favor of Homer's works ; in his reprehensory letter 

 to Aristotle, when chiding his master for laying bare the mys- 

 teries of philosophy, he gave him to understand that himself 

 esteemed it more glorious to excel others in learning and 

 knowledge than in power and empire. As to his own erudition, 

 evidence of its perfection shine forth in all his speeches and 

 writing, of which, though only small fragments have come 

 down to us, yet even these are richly impressed with the foot- 

 steps of the moral sciences. For example, take his words to 

 Diogenes, and judge if they do not inclose the very kernel of 

 one of the greatest questions in moral philosophy, viz., whether 

 the enjoyment or the contempt of earthly things leads to the 

 greatest happiness ; for, upon seeing Diogenes contented with 

 so little, he turned round to his courtiers, who were deriding 

 the cynic's condition, and said : " If I were not Alexander, I 

 would be Diogenes." (But Seneca, in his comparison, gives 

 the preference to Diogenes, saying that Diogenes had more 

 things to refuse than it was in the disposition of Alexander to 

 confer.)*- For his skill in natural science, observe his cus- 

 tomary saying, that he felt his mortality chiefly in two things 



