"The poets and writers of histories," he says, "are the best doctors of this knowledge; where we may find painted forth with great life how passions are kindled and incited; and how pacified and refrained; and how again contained from act and further degree; how they disclose themselves; how they work; how they vary; how they gather and fortify; how they are inwrapped one within another; and how they do fight and encounter one with another; and other the like particularities."[53] Such a lively description is required by Bacon from moral philosophy. That is to say, he desired nothing less than a natural history of the passions--the very thing that Shakspeare has produced. Indeed, what poet could have excelled Shakspeare in this respect? Who, to use a Baconian expression, could have depicted man and all his passions more _ad vivum_? According to Bacon, the poets and historians give us copies of characters; and the outlines of these images--the simple strokes that determine characters--are the proper objects of ethical science. Just as physical science requires a dissection of bodies, that their hidden qualities and parts may be discovered, so should ethics penetrate the various minds of men, in order to find out the eternal basis of them all. And not only this foundation, but likewise those external conditions which give a stamp to human character--all those peculiarities that "are imposed upon the mind by the sex, by the age, by the region, by health and sickness, by beauty and deformity, and the like, which are inherent and not external; and, again, those which are caused by external fortune"[54]--should come within the scope of ethical philosophy. In a word, Bacon would have man studied in his individuality as a product of nature and history, in every respect determined by natural and historical influences, by internal and external conditions. And exactly in the same spirit has Shakespeare understood man and his destiny; regarding character as the result of a certain natural temperament and a certain historical position, and destiny as a result of character. FOOTNOTES: [53] "Advancement of Learning," II. "De Augment. Scient.," VII. 3. [54] "Advancement of Learning," II. For the whole passage compare "De Augment. Scient.," VII. 3. CHAPTER XXIII. THE TESTIMONY OF BACON'S CONTEMPORARIES. A distinguished member of the Bench in a recent post-prandial address referred to Bacon as "a shady lawyer." Irresponsible newspaper correspondents, when attacking the Baconian theory, indulge in epithets of this kind, but it is amazing that any man occupying a position so responsible as that of an English judge should, either through ignorance or with a desire to be considered a wit, make use of such a term. Whatever may have been Francis Bacon's faults, one fact must stand unchallenged--that amongst those of his contemporaries who knew him there was a consensus of opinion that his virtues overshadowed any failings to which he might be subject.