Valerius Terminus · Francis Bacon
VALERIUS TERMINUS: OF THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE
New York 1971) says that | Bacon draws on Natalis Comes (Conti) | MYTHOLOGIAE SIVE EXPLICATIONUM | FABULARUM LIBRI X (1551) and on | Boccaccios DE GENEALOGIA DEORUM | (1472). | | Simone Wirthmann comments: | Treatises on classical mythology had a | wide circulation during the | Renaissance because it has been | thought that one might discover in the | stories of the gods and goddesses the | wisdom of the ancients. | It was in Italy, in the sixteenth | century that the Renaissance produced | the most widely known works on the | classic deities. | | One of the most popular books was | Natalis Conti's "MYTHOLOGY", which was | fully as learned as any of its | competitors, pleasanter to read and | incomparably easier to use as a | referencebook. Furthermore, it | systematically interprets every myth | it relates according to a multitude of | authorities.
It provides a list of | authorities, an excellent index and | synopses of the interpretations | divided into ethical and physical. | Despite all these new books, which | largely superseded Boccaccio's famous | "DE GENEALOGIIS DEORUM", they were far | from causing it to be forgotten. | | For that reason it is to presume that | Bacon draws on Natalis Comes (Conti) | "MYTHOLOGIAE SIVE EXPLICATIONEM | FABULARUM LIBRI X" (1551) and on | "Boccaccio's De Genealogia | Deorum"(1472) (see Charles W. Lemmi | THE CLASSICAL DEITIES IN BACON. A | STUDY IN MYTHOLOGICAL SYMBOLISM | (Baltimore 1933, repr. New York 1971). race{45}. And knowledge referred to some | 45. Ovid, Metamorphosen, Buch X, 665- particular point of use is but | 680 as Harmodius{46} which putteth down one | 46. see Herodot, Histories, V, 55 and tyrant, and not like | VI, 109 and 123 | The Oxford Classical Dictionary says: | Aristogiton (6th c. B.C.), Athenian | tyrannicide. He and Harmodius, both of | noble family, planned to kill the | tyrant Hippias and his younger brother | Hipparchus, in consequence of a | private quarrel (514 B.C.). The plot | miscarried: only Hipparchus was | killed.
Harmodius was at one cut down | by Hippias' guards, Aristogiton | arrested and executed (after torture, | it is said). As the tyranny was | overthrown three years later, the two | were popularly supposed to have made | this possible, and were ever after | called the Liberators. Simonides wrote | a poem in their honour, statues of | them were set up in the agora (and new | ones erected when these were carried | off by Xerxes in 480), and their | descendants for all time honoured with | the right to meals in the Prytaneum. Hercules{47} who did perambulate the world | 47. Hercules is not a Baconian hero. to suppress tyrants and giants and | The real hero is Orpheus as he is monsters in every | interpreted in "Orpheus, sive | Philosophia" in DE SAPIENTIA VETERUM. | Orpheus is the Baconian philosopher, | and the myth of Orpheus is about the | opera scientiae. The works of Orpheus | are superior to the works of Hercules | as the "works of wisdom" (opera | sapientiae) are superior to the "works | of strength" (opera fortitudinis) (VI, | 720). | | Simone Wirthmann comments: | Hercules (gr.
Heracles), (lit. "having | or showing the glory of Hera"; Hera, | wife of Zeus) Hercules, the son of | Zeus and of the mortal Alkmene was a | celebrated hero of Greek and Roman | mythology, who after death was ranked | among the gods and received divine | honours. He is represented as | possessed of prodigious strength, | whereby he was enabled to perform | twelve extraordinary tasks or | "labours" imposed upon him by Hera. | One of these tasks was to capture the | cattles of the three-headed giant | Geryoneus. It is said, that on this | journey Hercules set up the rocks | Calpé (now Gibraltar) and Abyla | (Ceuta) / THE PILLARS OF HERCULES on | either side of the Strait of | Gibraltar, as a sign for his longest | journey. THE PILLARS where seen by the | ancients to be the supports of the | western boundary of the world. | | Bacon uses the myth of Hercules and | Harmodius in a methaphorical way, to | elucidate the real contents of | knowledge by comparing the two | "heroes".
Hercules impersonates | strength and justice, throughout his | life he tried to free people from | tyranny, fought against giants and | monsters without thinking of his own | benefit. Harmodius in comparison tried | to kill the tyrants Hippias and | Hipparchus in consequence of a private | quarrel and not primarily to free | people. | | This shows, that for Bacon knowledge | must be of general existence and not | only refer to some particular point. | | Nevertheless, in one of his later | works, DE SAPIENTIA VETERUM (1609), | Hercules is not the Baconian hero | anymore. The real hero is Orpheus, the | philosopher. His works are superior to | the works of Hercules as the "works of | wisdom" (opera sapientiae) are | superior to the "works of strength" | (opera fortitudinis) (VI, 729). | | Orpheus was a legendary poet, a famous | musician and singer of ancient Greece, | who had the power of charming all | animate and inanimate objects (he | could move rocks and trees) by the | sweet strains of his lyre.
He | descended living into Hades, to bring | back to life his wife Eurydice, and | perished, torn to pieces by infuriated | Thracian maenads (see THE OXFORD | CLASSICAL DICTIONARY; THE CENTURY | DICTIONARY, VOL. 4) part.{48} It is true, that in two points | 48. Spedding's note: The words "that the curse is peremptory and not to be | is, man's miseries and necessities," removed; the one that vanity must be the | which followed in the transcript, have end in all human effects, eternity being | a line drawn through them. resumed, though the revolutions and | periods may he delayed{49}. The other that | 49. Melek Hasgün comments: the consent of the creature being now | "...eternity being resumed...".: In turned into reluctation, this power cannot | Henry VIII (..) and King Lear (I/4) otherwise be exercised and administered | ‘resume’ means: to take back but with labour, as well in inventing as | something previously given or in executing; yet nevertheless chiefly | granted.
The fact that it is written that labour and travel which is described | in the passive form without an object by the sweat of the brows more than of the | implies that eternity has been taken body; that is such travel as is joined | back by God, referring to the Fall of with the working and discursion of the | Man and Paradise Lost. spirits in the brain: for as Salomon saith | excellently, THE FOOL PUTTETH TO MORE | ‘Revolution’ is the action or fact, STRENGTH, BUT THE WISE MAN CONSIDERETH | on the part of celestial bodies, of WHICH | moving round in an orbit or circular | course. The time in which a planet or | other heavenly body completes a full | circuit or course. (OED) A look at the | complete works and consequences of his | work, namely the foundation of | scientific or academic institutions | after his death that were the | precursors of the Royal Society | (1660), ‘revolution’ can also be | understood in the modern sense.
In | fact, NEW ATLANTIS and NOVUM ORGANUM | set the foundation for the | "intellectual revolution" (Harvey | Wheeler's essay on Nova Atlantis; to | be obtained from the author: | | [email protected]), which implies | the complete overthrow of established | state of affairs. (OED) WAY{50}, signifying the election of the | 50. Ecclesiastes 10, 12: mean to be more material than the | Authorized Version: The words of a multiplication of endeavour. It is true | wise man's mouth are gracious; but the also that there is a limitation rather | lips of a fool will swallow up potential than actual, which is when the | himself. effect is possible, but the time or place | yieldeth not the matter or basis whereupon | for a commentary see A.L. Sp.III,322, man should work. But notwithstanding these | I.14 seq. (D.A. Sp.
I, 486, I, 11 precincts and bounds, let it be believed, | seq.) and appeal thereof made to TIME, (with | renunciation nevertheless to all the vain | and abusing promises of Alchemists and | Magicians, and such like light, idle, | ignorant, credulous, and fantastical wits | and sects,) that the new-found world of | land was not greater addition to the | ancient continent than there remaineth at | this day a world of inventions and | sciences unknown, having respect to those | that are known, with this difference, that | the ancient regions of knowledge will seem | as barbarous compared with the new, as the | new regions of people seem barbarous | compared to many of the old. | | The dignity of this end (of endowment of | man's life with new commodities) | appeareth by the estimation that | antiquity made of such as guided | thereunto. For whereas founders of states, | lawgivers, extirpers of tyrants, fathers | of the people, were honoured but with the | titles of Worthies or Demigods, inventors | were ever consecrated amongst the Gods | themselves.
And if the ordinary ambitions | of men lead them to seek the amplification | of their own power in their countries, and | a better ambition than that hath moved men | to seek the amplification of the power of | their own countries amongst other nations, | better again and more worthy must that | aspiring be which seeketh the | amplification of the power and kingdom of | mankind over the world; the rather because | the other two prosecutions are ever | culpable of much perturbation and | injustice; but this is a work, truly | divine which cometh IN AURA LENI {51} | 51. 1 Kings 19,12 (Vulgata) without noise or observation{52}. | 52. St Luke 17,20: | Authorized Version: And when he was The access also to this work hath been by | demanded of the Pharisees, when the that port or passage, which the divine | kingdom of God should come, he Majesty (who is unchangeable in his ways) | answered them and said, The kingdom doth infallibly continue and observe; that | of God cometh not with observation. is the felicity wherewith he hath blessed | an humility of mind, such as rather | see Novum Organum. I, 93; A.L.
Sp. laboureth to spell and so by degrees to | III, 301,I, 29-302; also N.O. I, 129 read in the volumes of his creatures, than | (Sp. I,222,I.16 seq.) to solicit and urge and as it were to | invocate a man's own spirit to divine and | give oracles unto him. For as in the | inquiry of divine truth, the pride of man | hath ever inclined to leave the oracles of | God's word and to vanish in the mixture of | their own inventions; so in the self-same | manner, in inquisition of nature they have | ever left the oracles of God's works, and | adored the deceiving and deformed imagery | which the unequal mirrors of their own | minds have represented unto them{53}. Nay | 53. compare this with the later idea of it is a point fit and necessary in the | Idols front and beginning of this work without | hesitation or reservation to be professed, | that it is no less true in this human | kingdom of knowledge than in God's kingdom | of heaven, that no man shall enter into it | EXCEPT HE BECOME FIRST AS A LITTLE CHILD. | | 54. Spedding's note: This chapter ends | at the top of a new page.
The rest is | left blank. | | 55. In NO Bacon says that entrance into | the new sciences depends upon their | followers' imitating the little | children favoured by Christ, children | whose lack of vanity gives them | privileged access to the kingdom of | heaven (IV, 69). cf. John Channing | Briggs, "Bacon's science and | religion", in: THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION | TO BACON, ed. by Markku Peltonen | (Cambridge, 1966), 172-199. | St Mark, 10,15: | | Authorized Version: Verily I say unto | you, Whosoever shall not receive the | kingdom of God as a little child, he | shall not enter therein.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.