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endlich Epistolae. - Nach dieser summartschen Uèbersicht sei¬ner Werke nur noch einige Bemerkungen über sein für die Ge– lahrtheit wichtigstes Werk, wir meinen seine Magna Instauratio. Der erste Theil derselben. de augmentis scientiarum enthält eine Uebersicht des menschlichen Wissens nach der auf die drei Grundkräfte der Seele → Gedächtnifs, Einbildungskraft und Verstand gegründeten Eintheilung in Geschichte, Poesie und Philosophie. Was nun in diesen Haupttheilen und in den mannigfaltigen Zweigen, in welche sich dieselben wiederum theilen, irrig oder mangelhaft ist oder noch ganz fehlt, das zeigt er und giebt zugleich die Mittel an, die Irrthümer zu berichtigen, den Mängeln abzuhelfen und das Feh lende zu ergänzen. Diese Uebersicht weiset nach, dafs er, was vor ihm in den Wissenschaften geleistet worden war, sich gröfstentheils angeeignet und nach Beendigung des hierzu erforderlichen unermesslichen Studiums sich zu dem hohen Standpunkt einer Kritik der bisherigen Leistungen erhoben hatte. Am Schlusse dieses Werkes giebt er unter dem Titel: Deside rata eine Uebersicht der verschiedenen Theile der Wissenschaft, welche bis dahin noch vernachläfsigt oder unbekannt waren. Unter diesen Desideratis findet man auch eine Astrologia, aber eine Astrologia sana, eine Anatomia comparata; auch eine Grammatica philosophans ist genannt. Ueberhaupt haben seine An deutungen Veranlassung zur Bearbeitung manches bis dahin unbekannten Feldes der Wissenschaft gegeben. Der zweite Theil seiner Instauratio'magna, das Novum Organon enthaltend, ist zwar eine Logik, aber in einem edlern und höhern Sinne als die Dialektiken der damaligen Zeit und vielmehr eine Methodik. Er behauptet, dafs man sich mehr an die Sinne und die Erfahrung als an die Abstraction halten müsse und will das ganze Gebäude des menschlichen Wissens aus der Erfahrung durch Induction aufgeführt wissen. Newton gelangte auf diesem Wege zu seiner Theorie des Lichts. Der 3te, 4te und 5te Theil seiner Instauratio magna enthalten theilweise Ausführungen seiner Ideen. Um sich den Zustand der Wissenschaften zu der Zeit, wo Sir Francis Bacon auftrat, mehr noch zu vergegenwärtigen, nehmen wir auf das weiterhin in diesem Handbuche aus Mallet's Biographie desselben abgedruckte Bruchstück Bezug und bemerken hier nur noch, dafs die deutsche Literatur eine, jedoch unvollendete Uebersetzung des Novum Organon besitzt, unter dem Titel: Neues Organon übersetzt von Bartoldy, Berlin 1793 in 8vo.

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Without good-nature, man is but a better kind of vermin,

He that studieth revenge, keepeth his own wounds green. Fortune is like a market, where many times if you stay a little the price will fall.

He that goeth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel.

Generally it is good to commit the beginning of all great actions to Argus with an hundred eyes; and the ends of them to Briareus with an hundred hands; first to watch, and then to speed.

He who builds a fair house upon an ill seat, commits himself to prison.

Men of noble birth are noted to be envious towards new men when they rise: for the distance is altered; and it is like a deceit of the eye, that when others come on, they think themselves go back."

In great place, ask counsel of both times: of the ancient time, what is best; and of the latter time, what is fittest.

God never wrought miracle to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it.

If a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune: for though she be blind, she is not invisible.

ftself

envy.

Seneca saith well, that anger is like ruin, which breaks upon that it falls.

Death openeth, the gate to good fame and extinguisheth

It were good that man, in their innovations, would follow the example of time itself, which indeed innovateth greatly, but quietly, and by degrees scarce to be perceived. Fame is like a river that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid.

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He that cannot see well, let him go softly.

2) APOPHTHEGM 9.

Sir Nicholas Bacon, who was keeper of the great seal of

England, when queen Elizabeth in her progress came to his house at Gorhambury, and said to him: ,, My lord, what a little house have you gotten!" answered her,, Madam, my house is well, but it is you that have made me too great for my house".

Solon compared the people unto the sea, and orators and counsellors to the winds: for that the sea would be calm and quiet, if the winds did not trouble it.

Queen Elizabeth used to say of her instructions to great officers, that they were like to garments, strait at the first putting on, but did by and by wear loose enough,"

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There was a captain sent to an exploit by his general with forces that were not likely to atchieve the entreprize: the captain said to him, „, Sir, appoint but half so many." ,,Why?" saith the general. The captain answered,,, Because it is better fewer die than more."

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King James was wont to be very earnest with the country gentlemen to go from London to their country houses. And sometimes he would say thus to them: Gentlemen at London you are like ships at sea, which shew like nothing; but in your country villages you are like ships in a river, which look like great things.

When any great officer, ecclesiastical or civil, was to be made, queen Elizabeth would inquire after the piety, integrity, and learning of the man. And when she was satisfied in these qualifications, she would consider of his personage. And upon such an occasion, she pleased once to say to me: ,,Bacon, how can the magistrate maintain his authority when the man is despised?"

Cato said,,,The best way to keep good acts in memory, was to refresh them with new."

There was a bishop that was somewhat a delicate person, and bathed twice a day. A friend of his said to him: „My lord, why do you bathe twice a day?" The bishop answered: Because I cannot conveniently bathe thrice."

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Mr. Bettenham said, that virtuous men were like some herbs and spices, that give not out their sweet smell, till they be broken or crushed,

There was a painter became a physician; whereupon one said to him: „You have done well: for before the faults of your work were seen: but now they are unseen.”

Cosmus duke of Florence was wont to say of perfidious friends, that we read, that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read, that we ought our friends,”

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Ethelwold bishop of Winchester, in a famine, sold all the rich vessels and ornaments of the church, to relieve the poor with bread, and said, there was no reason that the

dead temples of God should be sumptuously furnished and the living temples suffer penury."

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Alonso of Arragon was wont to say of himself, he was a great necromancer, for that he used to ask counsel of the dead:" meaning of books.

Constantine the Great, in a kind of envy, himself being a great builder, as Trajan likewise was, would call Trajan Parietaria *), wall-flower; because his name was upon so many walls.

There was a King of Hungary took a bishop in battle, and kept him prisoner: whereupon the pope writ a monitory to him, for that he had broken the privilege of holy church, and taken his son, The king sent an embassage to him, and sent withal the armour wherein the bishop was taken, and this only in writing, Vide non haec sit vestis filii tui: know now whether this be thy son's coat."

Michael Angelo the famous painter, painting in the pope's chapel the portraiture of hell and damned souls, made one of the damned souls so like a cardinal that was his enemy, as every body at first sight knew it. Where upon the cardinal complained to pope Clement, humbly praying it might be defaced. The pope said to him, why, you know very weil,,,I have power to deliver a soul out of purgatory, but not out of hell."

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Sir Thomas More, who was a man, in all his life-time, that had an excellent vein in jesting, at the very instant of his death, having a pretty long beard, after his head was upon the block, lift it up again, and gently drew his beard aside, and said: This hath not offended the king."

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3) OF FRIENDSHIP. **)

It had been hard for him that spake***) it to have put more truth and untruth together, in few words, than in that speech: Whosoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a God." For it is most true, that a natural and secret hatred and aversation towards society, in any man, has somewhat of the savage beast: but it is most untrue, that it should have any character at all of the divine nature, except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a

*) Parietaria (herba) Wandkraut, Mauerkraut. **) Essays civil and moral xxv. ***) spake alt für spoke.

love and desire to sequester a man's self for a higher conversation: such as is found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathen; as Epimenides the Candian, *) Numa the Roman, **) Empedocles the Sicilian, ***) and Apol— lonius of Tyana; †) and truly and really in divers of the ancient hermits, and holy fathers of the Church. But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. The latin adage meeteth with it a little: Magna civitas, magna solitudo; because in a great town friends are scattered, so that there is not that fellowship, for the most part, which is in little neigbourhoods.. But we may go farther, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude, to want true friends, without which the world is but a wilderness. And even in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity.

A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and discharge of the fulness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings and suffocations are the most dangerous in the body; and it is not much otherwise in the mind; you may take sarzat) to open the liver; steel to open the spleen; flour of sulphur for the lungs; castoreum for the brain; but no receipt openeth, the heart, but a true friend, to whom you' may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart, to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift +++) or confession.

It is a strange thing to observe, how high a rate great kings and monarchs do set upon this fruit of friendship, whereof we speak; so great, as they purchase it many times at the hazard of their own safety and greatness. For princes,

Epimenides, von Gnosus auf Creta (Candia), lebte um das Jahr Roms 158. **) Numa Pompilius, der bekannte zweite König Roms. Er regierte bis zum Jahre 81 d. St. ***) Empedocles, qus Agrigent in Sicilien, ein Pythagoreischer Philosoph, blühte um das Jahr Roms 311. †) Apollonius, aus Tyana, einer Stadt in Cappadocien, lebie um die Zeit der Geburt Christi, ein durch seine vorgeblichen Wunder berüchtigter Philosoph. ††) Sarsaparilla. ) Shrift, (veraltet) Geständnifs, Mittheilung.

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