Page 51 - DENG502_PROSE

Unit 5: Francis Bacon - Of Truth: Critical Analysis

like Pilate, “will not stay for an answer,” or give a “learning patience” to the problem, and in their Notes
hearts declare the theory a heresy, a foolish fad, an impossibility.
Mark Twain has recently drawn a parallel, comparing Shakespeare to Satan, and there is something
in it, for all denial is of the badge of Antichrist; and has not the great German poet, Goethe
described Mephistopheles (and his followers?) with the words “der stets verneint,” —who everlasting
denies? After all, rebutting evidence is always easier than proof, for the thing saves trouble if one
only takes one’s ignorance seriously, or affirmatively, setting up for a judge instead of a learner,
and imagining a faculty of not knowing can be a criterion for passing judgments upon new
discoveries.
“Coming in a man’s own name,” Bacon declares, “is no infallible sign of truth. For certainly there
cometh to pass, and hath place in human truth, that which was noted and pronounced in the
highest truth.” Veni in nomine patris, nec recipitis me; si quis venetit in nomine suo, eum recipietis
(I came in the name of the Father, but ye did not receive Me; if any one shall come in his own
name, him ye receive).
But in this divine aphorism (considering to whom it was applied, namely, to Antichrist, the
highest deceiver) we may discern well that the coming in a man’s own name, without regard of
antiquity or paternity, is no good sign of truth, although it be joined with the fortune and success of
an eum recipietis” (and book Advancement of Learning, p.99).
Therefore the coming of Shakespeare in his own name, although he has been received without
question, is not an infallible sign of truth. In Aphorism 84 of the first book of the Novum Organum:
“Again men have been kept back as by a kind of enchantment from progress in the sciences, by
reverence for antiquity, by the authority of men accounted great in philosophy, and then by general
consent. And with regard to authority it shows a feeble mind to grant so much to authors, and yet
deny Time his rights, who is the author of authors, nay, rather of all authority. For rightly is truth
called the daughter of time.”
By “consent” Bacon means, the world’s general or universal assent, or tradition; as, for example,
that Shakespeare is the author of the 1623 Folio plays. The world often mistakes echoes for volume,
and there is the popular fallacy that counting of heads is proof of truth. But in matters intellectual
it is not as with physical power or wealth—there is no aggregate or arithmetical sum total, as, for
example, when men pull on a rope or heap up money. But it is rather as in a race, where only a few
can be first, and there is no addition of speeds.
Hear Bacon: “For the worst of all auguries is from consent in matters intellectual (Divinity excepted,
and politics where there is right of vote). For nothing pleases the many unless it strikes the
imagination, or binds the understanding with the bonds of common notions” (Aphorism 77,
Novum Organum).
Therefore the saying,”That the world says, or the world believes,” though to be respected, is not
final, and should not deter us from examining anew problems which the past generations had
probably no time or curiosity to question. Besides, as Bacon says, in this essay Of Truth,
“ The first creature of God, in the work of the days, was the light of the senses, the last was the light
of reason; and His Sabbath work ever since is the illumination of His Spirit.”
The Vedas say, “In the midst of the sun is the light, in the midst of light is truth, and in the midst
of truth is the imperishable Being.” “ Truth,” says Chaucer, “ is the highest thing that man can
keep.” In this essay of Truth Bacon says,”
“ One of the late school of the Grecians examineth the matter, and is at a stand to think what
should be in it, that men should love lies, where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets; nor for
advantage, as with the merchant; but for the lies sake. But I cannot tell : this same truth is a naked
and open day light, that doth not show the masques, and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half
so stately and daintily as candle lights.”

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 45