A Finding List: Part I.
Bacon’s Words and Phrases of the English then of the Latin
Life of The Right Honourable Author
By Dr. Rawley
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W-X-Y-Z
Words and phrases in English and Latin that was used by Bacon and may easily be referred back to his works derived from, that remain not so familiar in our modern language or have possibly changed in meaning. This was an important intention that would be supplementary help to students on their studies of Bacon, or, of other authors of the era that would have been quoted in other works of that age or even at an earlier age than Bacon’s.
There must be a sad mistake somewhere if Part I., was abandoned so quickly. The name of Shakespeare admonishes us to state the fact, none more memorable in the history of English letters, that contemporary with the Bard of Avon, in the era of Elizabeth and James, flourished a large number of writers, men of very great genius. The works of all these writers have commanded a good deal of attention, to the great advantage of our speech, their diction is so light, vigorous, and of such ivory polish.
Many years ago, in the late 1800’s, a sermon came from an eloquent young Methodist minister on Abraham’s offering up of Isaac, in which were many impressive paragraphs; yet only one was in the very least remembered. Speaking of Isaac as an only son, he said: “Parents are aware that the only child in a family is apt to get a little bit spoil’d.” These artless words of the hearth and homestead, “a little bit spoil’d,” shall never be forgotten as one reads the writings of the age. They brought the speaker into our home and down to our level; they made the whole so life-like. Such precisely is often an effect of mid-cut, as when “don’t” is used in today’s language. Of such words, that have built the phrases of the times, Part I., embodies from Bacon’s writ. This would mean quite simply, that the Elizabethan spelling has been secured in many phrases and should be seen with more interest to the reader to continue than to abandon.
A (English)
A discord Resolved into a concord improves the harmony. (Bacon, De Aug., Bk. II).
A good name Is as a precious ointment. (Bacon, Essays: Epis. Dedic).
A man Cannot love again that which he thinks he has ceased to love. (Bacon, De Aug., Bk. II).
A soft answer Turneth away wrath. (Bacon, De Aug., Bk. II).
A strait glove Will come more easily on with use.(Bacon, Adv., Bk. II).
A thousand years Are but as one day. (Bacon, Adv., Bk. II).
A youth Set will never be higher. (Bacon, Promus). 1
Abase To depress; to lower. It is a point of cunning to wait upon him with whom you speak with your eye; yet with a demure abasing of it sometimes. (Bacon).
Abortive For I never saw but that business is like a child which is framed invisibly in the womb; and if it come forth too soon, it will be abortive. (Bacon, Letter to King James).
Abortment From the word abort. The thing brought forth out of time; an untimely birth.
Concealed treasures, now lost to mankind, (all be brought into use by the industry of converted penitents, whose wretched carcases the impartial laws dedicate, as untimely feasts, to the worms of the earth, in whose womb those deserted mineral riches must ever lie buried as loft abortments unless those be made the active midwives to deliver them. (Bacon, Physical Remains).
About Nearly; circiter. Also round; the longed: way, in opposition to the short straight way.
When the boats were come within about sixty yards of the pillar, they found themselves all bound, and could go no farther; yet so as they might move to go about, but might not approach nearer. (Bacon, New Atlantis).
Gold had these natures; greatness of weight; closeness of parts; fixation; pliantness, or softness; immunity from rust; colour, or tincture of yellow: Therefore the sure way (though most about) to make gold, is to know the causes of the several natures before rehearsed. (Bacon, Natural History, No. 328).
Above Over-head; in a higher place.
To men standing below, men standing aloft seem much lessened; to those above, men standing below, seem not so much lessened. (Bacon).
Absorb The evils that come of exercise are that it doth absorb and attenuate the moisture or the body. (Bacon).
Abstersive That has the quality of absterging or cleansing.
It is good, after purging, to use apozemes and broths, not so much opening as those used before purging; but abstersive and mundifying clysters also are good to conclude with, to draw away the reliques of the humours. (Bacon, Natural History).
Abuse From abuti, to misuse, to deceive, but not necessarily with any intention to injure, to impose upon. Also so used by Caxton in 1477. This sense is preserved in the negative disabuse.
The world hath been much abused by the opinion of making gold: the work itself I judge to be possible; but the means hitherto propounded, are in the practice, full of error. (Bacon, Natural History,No. 126).
You are much abused, if you think your virtue can withstand the King’s power. (Bacon, Adv., 1605).
Abusive Deceitful; a sense little used, yet not improper.
It is verified by a number of examples, that whatsoever is gained by an abusive treaty, ought to be restored in integrum. (Bacon, Considerations on War with Spain).
Accelerate To make quick, to hasten, to quicken motion; to give a continual impulse to motion, so as perpetually to increase.
Take new beer, and put in some quantity of stale beer into it; and see whether it will not accelerate the clarification, by opening the body of the beer, whereby the grosser parts may fall down into less. (Bacon, Natural History,No. 307).
In which council the King himself, whose continual vigilancy did suck in sometimes causeless suspicions, which few else knew, inclined to the accelerating a battle. (Bacon, Henry VII.).
Accidental Generations of winds Those which do not produce or create an impulsive motion, but either excite it by compression, or drive it back by repercussion, or roll and agitate it by curves. And this is affected by external causes, and the position of contiguous bodies. (Bacon, History of Winds). [Also see Names of Winds.]
Action Narrations, in verity and sincerity. (Bacon, Adv. Bk. II).
Accompany To associate with; to become a companion to.
No man in effect doth accompany with others but he learneth, ere he is aware, some gesture voice, or fashion. (Bacon, Natural History).
Accord A compact; an agreement; adjustment of a difference in music.
There was no means for him to satisfy all obligations to God and man, but to offer himself, for a mediator of an accord and peace between them. (Bacon, Henry VII.).
Musical note: Try, if there were in one steeple two bells of unison, whether the striking of the one would move the other, more than if it were another accord. (Bacon, Natural History, No. 281).
Account An opinion previously established.
These were designed to join with the forces, at sea, there being prepared a number of flat-bottomed boats to transport the land forces under the wing; of the great navy: for they made no account, but that the navy should be absolutely master of the seas. (Bacon, Considerations on War with Spain).
Accustomably According to custom.
Touching the King’s fines accustomably paid for the purchasing of writs original, I find no certain beginning of them, and do therefore think that they grew up with the chancery. (Bacon, Alienation).
Acid Sour, sharp.
Wild trees last longer than garden trees; and in the same kind, those whose fruit is acid, more than those whose fruit is sweet. (Bacon, Natural History).
Acrimony Sharpness, corrosiveness.
There be plants that have a milk in them when they are cut; as, figs, old lettuce, sow-thistles, spurge. The cause may be an inception of putrefaction: for those milks have all an acrimony, though one should think they should be lenitive. (Bacon, Natural History).
Active good Apparent good of the individual. (Bacon, Adv. Bk. II).
Administrator He was wonderfully diligent to enquire and observe what became of the King of Arragon, in holding the Kingdom of Castille, and whether he did hold it in his own right, or as administrator to his daughter. (Bacon, Henry VII.).
Admission The act or practice of admitting.
There was also enacted that charitable law, for the admission of poor suitors without fee; whereby poor men became rather able to vex, than unable to sue. (Bacon, Henry VII.).
By means of our solitary situation, and our rare admission of strangers, we know most part of the habitable world, and are ourselves unknown. (Bacon, New Atlantis).
Adoe Bustle; to do; used in the same sense in many dialects. (Bacon, Essays: IX & XII).
Adulteration From adulterate. The act of adulterating or corrupting by foreign mixture: contamination.
To make the compound pass for the rich metal simple, is an adulteration, or counterfeiting: but if it be done avowedly, and without disguising it may be a great saving of the richer metal. (Bacon, Natural History, No. 798).
Adure To burn up. This word was no longer in use by 1647.
Such a degree of heat, which doth neither melt nor scorch, doth mellow, and not adure. (Bacon, Natural History,No. 319).
Adust Parched; burnt up. (Bacon, Essays: XXXVI).
Advancement Let those who distrust their own powers observe myself, one who have amongst my contemporaries been the most engaged in public business, who are not very strong in health (which causes a great loss of time), and am the first explorer of this course, following the guidance of none, nor even communicating my thoughts to a single individual; yet having once firmly entered in the right way, and submitting the powers of my mind to things, I have somewhat advanced (as I make bold to think) the matter I now treat of. (Bacon, Nov. Org., Bk. I).
And in places of moment, rather make able and honest men yours, than advance those that are otherwise because they are yours.
(Bacon, Letter to Villiers).
And for those she advanced to places of trust, she kept such a tight rein upon them, and so distributed her favours, that she held each of them under the greatest obligation and concern to please her, whilst she always remained mistress of herself. (Bacon, Memory of Elizabeth).
Adversity It was a high speech of Seneca, that the good things which belong to Prosperity are to be wished, but the good things which belong to Adversity are to be studied. (Bacon, Essay: Of Adversity).
Certainly, if miracles be the command over nature, they appear most in adversity. (Ibid).
Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity is the blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer revelation of God’s favour. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes, and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. (Ibid).
Advisedly Surprise may be made by moving things, when the party is in haste and cannot stay to consider advisedly of that which is moved. (Bacon, Essays: XXIII).
Advoutress An adulteress. (Bacon, Essays: XIX).
Advoutry Adultery.
He was the most perfidious man upon the earth, and he had made a marriage compounded between an advoutry and a rape. (Bacon, Henry VII.).
Æsop’s fables The fly that sat on the pole of a chariot at the Olympic races and said what a dust do I raise. (Bacon, Thema Cœli & Essays: LIV).
Minerva makes a house, and Momus says it should have been on wheels, to get away from bad neighbours. (Bacon, Essays: XLV).
Afar We hear better when we hold our breath than contrary; insomuch as in listening to attain a sound afar off, men hold their breath. (Bacon, Natural History, No. 284).
Affect Affection; passion; sensation.
It seemeth that as the feet have a sympathy with the head, so the wrists have a sympathy with the heart; we see the affects and passions of the heart and spirits are notably disclosed by the pulse. (Bacon, Natural History, No. 97).
Affectation If behaviour and outward carriage be intended (attended to) too much, first, it may pass into affectation, 2 and then (what more unseemly than to be always playing a part?) to act a man’s life. But, although it proceed not to that extreme, yet it consumeth time, and employeth the mind too much. Certainly the intending of the discretion of behaviour is a great thief of meditation? (Bacon, Adv., Bk. II).
Affectionate Strongly inclined to; disposed to; with the particle to.
As for the Parliament, it presently took fire, being affectionate, of old, to the war of France. (Bacon, Henry VII.).
Affinity All things that have affinity with the heavens, move upon the centre of another, which they benefit. (Bacon, Essays: XXIV).
Again A second time; once more; marking the repetition of the same thing.
The poor remnant of human seed, which remained in their mountains, peopled their country again slowly, by little and little. (Bacon, New Atlantis).
Age deforms and wears both mind and body Old age, if it could be seen, deforms the mind more than the body. (Bacon, De Aug., Bk. VI. Antitheta III. 3).
In youth the body is erect; in old age, bent into a curce. Old age has an ill-natured envy. (Bacon, Hist. Life & Death).
Age in judgment All is not in years to me; somewhat is in hours well spent. (Bacon, Promus 152).
My last years, for so I account them, reckoning by health, and not by age. (Bacon, Letter to Sir R. Cecil).
A man that is young in years may be old in hours, if he have lost no time; but that happeneth rarely. Natures that have much heat are not ripe for action till they have passed the meridian of their years, for the experience of age, in all things that fall within the compass of it, directeth them. (Bacon, Essay: Of Youth and Age).
Aider From aid. He that brings aid or help; a helper; an ally.
All along as he went, were punished the adherents and aiders of the late rebels. (Bacon, Henry VII.).
Air Fleas breed principally of straw or mats, where there hath been a little moisture, or the chamber and bed-straw kept close, and not aired. (Bacon, Natural History, No. 696).
Alarum Alarm; of importance.
Albada From the Spanish alborada, dawning. This salutation, entered as an experiment in Bacon’s private commonplace book, c.1596, has since appeared but once in English print: in King Lear, first published in 1608.
Good dawning. (Bacon, Promus, 1594–96).
Alchymist One skilled in Alchemy. (Cockeram). 3
Alcohol for water The French chemist Lassaigne found that alcohol extracted a red colouring matter from unboiled lobster shells. (Bacon, Nov. Org.,Aphorismorum XI).
Alcohole The Turks have a black powder, made of a mineral called alcohole, which with a fine long pencil they lay under their eyelids, which doth colour them black, whereby the white of the eye is set off more white. (Bacon, Syl. Sylv).
Alimentation Bacon states of the general doctrine, that alimentation is by separation. (Bacon, Nov. Org., Aphorismorum XLVIII). Boussingault, during the eighteenth century, regarded animal fat as the representative of the fatty matters contained in the food.
Alkermes Theriaca. From which treacle is a corruption, is the name of a nostrum invented by Andromachus, who was physician to Nero. About Bacon’s time what was called mineral kermes, which was a preparation of antimony. (Bacon, De Aug., Bk. IV).
All is not in years Somewhat is in hours well spent. (Bacon, Promus).
All things Do by scale ascend to unity. (Bacon, Promus).
Alphabet The notion of an alphabet of the universe, of which Bacon has spoken more than once, must therefore be given up as a secret cipher. It could at best be only an alphabet of the present state of knowledge. And similarly of the analysis into abstract natures on which the process of exclusion depends. No such analysis can be used in the manner which Bacon prescribes to us, for every advance in knowledge presupposes the introduction of a new conception, by which the previously existing analysis is rendered incomplete, and therefore erroneous. (Spedding). 4
If the sow with her snout should happen to imprint the letter A upon the ground, wouldst thou therefore imagine that she could write out a whole tragedy as one letter? (Bacon, Interpretation of Nature).
Always Let losers have their words. (Bacon, Promus).
Amazons Let me put a feigned case of a land of Amazons, where the whole government, public and private, yea, the militia itself, was in the hands of women. I demand, is not such a preposterous government (against the first order of nature, for women to rule over men) in itself void, and to be suppressed? (Bacon, Holy War).
Ambition is like a choler, which, if it be stopped and cannot have its way, becometh a dust, and thereby malign and dangerous. So ambitious men, if they be checked in their desires, become secretly discontent, and look upon men and matters with an evil eye. (Bacon, Essay: Of Ambition).
Men suddenly flying at the greatest things of all, skip over the middle. (Bacon, Adv).
Let us look all around us, and observe where things stoop, and where they mount, and not misemploy our strength where the way is impassable. (Ibid.,).
There is use also of ambition in pulling down the greatness of any subject that overtops. (Bacon, Essay: Of Ambition).
Ambrosia After the poets; the meat of the poets. (Cockeram).
Amplitude Of reward; endeavour. (Bacon, Adv., Bk. II).
Amydo Mistake for amylo (άμυλο); amylum or starch is mentioned by Celsus as one of the cibi lenes.(Bacon, De Aug., Bk. IV).
An instrument In tuning. (Bacon, Promus).
Analogies Men’s labour should be turned to the investigation and observation of the analogies of things as well in wholes as in parts. For these it is that detect unity and lay a foundation for the sciences. (Bacon, Nov. Org., Bk. II., XXVII).
Ancients Bacon refers namely to Aristotle. (Bacon, Syl. Sylv).
And it were shame That men should have examined so carefully the tinklings of their own voice, and should yet be so ignorant of the voice of nature. (Bacon, The Nature of Things).
And so on For twice as much more. (Murdin, 718).
Anger Causeth paleness in some, and the going and coming of the colour in others: also trembling in some: swelling, foaming at the mouth, stamping, bending of the fist. (Bacon, Syl. Sylv).
It hath been observed that in anger the eyes wax red; and in blushing, not the eyes, but the ears, and the parts behind them. (Bacon, Nat. Hist. IX. 872).
If the anger of a Prince, or superior, be kindled against you, and it be now your turn to speak, Solomon directs (1) that an answer be made; (2) that it be soft. The first rule contains three precepts, viz.: 1. To guard against a melancholy and stubborn silence, for this either turns the fault wholly upon you, or impeaches your superior. 2. To beware of delaying the thing, and requiring a longer day for your defence. 3. To make a real answer, not a mere confession or bare submission, but a mixture of apology and excuse the answer should be mild and soft, not stiff and irritating. (Bacon, Adv., Aphorism 1).
Anger is a kind of baseness, as it appears well in the weakness of those subjects in whom it reigns: children, women, sickfolks. (Bacon, Essay: Of Anger).
Contempt is that which setteth an edge upon anger as much, or more, than the hurt itself; and, therefore, when men are ingenious in picking out circumstances of contempt, they do kindle their anger much. (Ibid).
In a fit of anger do not act anything that is irrevocable. (Ibid).
Let not the sun go down upon your anger. (Ibid).
In all refrainings of anger, it is the best remedy to gain time, and to make a man’s self believe that the opportunity of his revenge is not yet come; but that he foresees a time for it, and so to still himself in the mean time and reserve it. (Ibid).
Annals and Journals The History of Times is also rightly divided into Annals and Journals; which division, though it takes its name from periods of time, yet has also reference to the choice of subjects. For it is well observed by Cornelius Tacitus, after touching upon the magnificence of certain buildings, “That it was found suitable to the dignity of the Roman people to commit to Annals only matters of note, but such things as these to the Journals of the City;” thus referring matters concerning the state to Annals, but the less important kind of actions or accidents to Journals. Certainly, in my judgment, there ought to be a kind of heraldry in arranging the precedence of books, no less than of persons. (Bacon, Adv., Bk. II).
Annoy Trouble; hurt.
His pleasures shall be mated with annoyes. (Whitney). 5
Well more annoie is in me than is in thee of this mischaunce. (Chaucer).
For griefe whereof the lad w’ould after ioy, but pynd away in anguish and selfe-wild annoy. (Spencer).
Good angels guard thee from the boar’s annoy. (Shakespeare). 6
1 Pott Henry, Mrs. The Promus or Formularies and Elegancies by Francis Bacon. London: Longmans, Green, and Co, 1883
2 So in edition, 1622; the earlier edition has the old form affection for affectation
3 H.C. Gent. The English Dictionarie or an Interpreter of hard English words. London: A.M. for T.W., 1647
4 Spedding. Works, Vol. I. p. 87
5 Whitney. Choice of Emblemes, Emblem 219, 1.9, 1866
6 Shakespeare. Richard III. Act V. Sc. 3. 156
Ant-hill of Arts Who knows then but this work of mine is copied from a certain old book found in the most famous library of St. Victor, of which Master Francis Rabelais (1490–1553) made a catalogue? For there is a book there entitled the Ant-hill of Arts. (Bacon, De Aug).
The humour of making catalogues of imaginary books probably began with Rabelais. Rabelais’ Abbey of Thelema is a Utopian dream, holding much in common with Bacon’s New Atlantis, and the Rosicrucian commonwealths of John Val Andreas. The Gargantua and Pantagruel of Rabelais, probably the profoundest Masonic problem yet to be unriddled. Many of his notions were purely Masonic, but whether he knew anything of Masonry, it is difficult to say. Many passages, however, prove that he was acquainted with the Hermetic branch of the subject. The description of the Abbey of Thelema, where every one was to do just as he pleased, together with its government, may take its place beside More’s Utopia, Plato’s Republic, and Bacon’s New Atlantis. Rabelais is a forbidden book to many, on account of its containing much that a thin-skinned modern century does not like to see expressed in writing, but has no scruple, as daily experience shows, to put in practice. (McKenzie). 7 [Also see Part II: Rabelais François]
Antimasque A grotesque interlude introduced between the acts of the masque, to which it served as a foil and contrast, and hence its name. Let anti-masks not be long, they have been commonly of fools, satyrs, baboons, wild men, antiques, beasts, spirits, witches, Ethiops, pigmies, turquets, nymphs, rustics, cupids, statuas moving, and the like. As for angels it is not comical enough to put them in anti-masks; and anything that is hideous, as devils, giants, is on the other side as unfit. But chiefly let the music of them be recreative, and with strange changes some sweet odours suddenly coming forth, without any drops falling, are in such a company, as there is steam and heat, things of great pleasure and refreshment. (Bacon, Essay: 37).
Antinomia Used in the sense of a contradiction between different laws by Justinian. In Plutarch (Symposiaca, IX.13) it is nearly equivalent to what Jurisconsults designate by the phrase casus perplexus. (Bacon, De Aug., Bk. VIII).
Antipater Antipater was not praised for keeping to the Macedonian dress, but generally for the severity of his way of life. Alexander compared Antipater to a white striped garment, which on the inside the clavus being an external appendage showed no trace of white but was purple throughout. In the Adv., and Apo., Bacon speaks of the Macedonian habit of black. (Bacon, De Aug., Bk, I).
Antiquities Remnants of histories, are like the spars of a shipwreck, when, though the memory of things be decayed and almost lost, yet acute and industrious persons, by a certain persevering and scrupulous diligence, contrive out of genealogies, annals, titles, monuments, coins, proper names and styles, etymologies of words, proverbs, traditions, archives and instruments as well public as private, fragments of histories scattered about in books not historical. (Bacon, De Aug).
Antiquity In the book of Esdra, we read that the world has lost its youth, and that the times begin to wax old. Several writers in the age which preceded Bacon’s had already made use of this remark, for in that age men were no longer willing to submit to the authority of antiquity, and still felt bound to justify their dissent.
Antiquity is like fame, her head is muffled from our sight. The world’s youth, and the latter times its age. (Bacon, Adv., Bk. II).
(One disease of learning) is the extreme affecting of two extremities; the one Antiquity, the other Novelty. Surely the advice of the prophet is the true direction in this matter, “Stand ye in the old ways, and see which is the good way, and walk therein.” Antiquity deserveth that reverence, that men should make a stand thereupon, and discover what is the best way; but when the discovery is well taken, then to make progression. (Bacon, Adv., Bk. I). 8
Apostata An apostate. Before such words were completely naturalized, it was common to write them in the original form. But the practice was not uniform. Bacon, in his Essays, sometimes writes statua, and sometimes statue. Mr. Gifford would restore apostata, in all the passages of Massinger where the modern editors have changed it to apostate; and in most instances, the verse requires it, as: “To punish this apostata with death.” (Unnat. Combat, Act I).
Appalement Depression; discouragement; impression of fear.
As the furious slaughter of them was a great discouragement and appalement to the rest. (Bacon, Henry VII.).
Apparitions As in infection and contagion from body to body it is most certain that the infection is received by the body passive, but yet is by the strength and good disposition thereof repulsed and wrought out before it is formed into a disease; so much the more in impressions from mind to mind, or from spirit to spirit, the impression taketh, but is encountered and overcome by the mind and spirit, which is passive, before it work any manifest effect. (Bacon, Syl. Sylv., 1622–25).
Aqua Tophana Has been supposed, by some persons, to have been a solution of arsenic, with the addition of the herb cymbalasia, growing on old walls; by others it is supposed to have consisted of cantharides and opium. The poisons found in the casket of St. Croix, the lover of Brinvilliers, were corrosive sublimate, opium, regulus of antimony and vitriol. Such poison was said to have been used also on Sir. Thomas Overbury. Accordingly, Sir Edward Coke took occasion, with reference to the connection between the Earl and Countess of Somerset to say, “Poison and adultery went together.” [Also see Part III: Overbury case of 1616.]
Arcana Microcosmi Or the hid secrets of Man’s body discovered, with a refutation of Francis Bacon’s Natural History. 9
Arguments Reason is governed by practice, instead of practice by reason.
Fitted to practice, in a reversed order. (Bacon, Essays: XVII).
Arithmetic Does not come from the Hindoos or Arabs, but from the Greeks according to M. Chasles. (Bacon, Nov. Org., Aphorismi, IXXI).
Art and nature I am the rather induced to set down the history of Arts as a species of Natural History, because it is the fashion to talk as if Art were something different from Nature, so that things artificial should be separated from things natural as differing wholly in kind. (Bacon, Intellectual Globe).
Art of memory In Selden’s Table-talk he is made to affirm that, whatever may be said of great memories, no man will trust his memory when writing what is to be given to the world. (Bacon, De Aug., Bk. V).
The Art of Memory is built upon two intentions; Prenotion and Emblem. By Prenotion I mean a kind of cutting off of infinity of search. For when a man desires to recall anything into his memory, if he have no prenotion or perception of that he seeks, he seeks and strives and beats about hither and thither as if in infinite space. But if he have some certain prenotion, this infinity is at once cut off, and the memory ranges in a narrower compass; like the hunting of a deer within an enclosure. And therefore order also manifestly assists the memory; for we have a prenotion that what we are seeking must be something which agrees with order. Emblem, on the other hand, reduces intellectual conceptions to sensible images; for an object of sense always strikes the memory forcibly and is more easily impressed upon it than an object of the intellect; insomuch that even brutes have their memory excited by sensible impressions; never by intellectual ones. And therefore you will more easily remember the image of a hunter pursuing a hare, of an apothecary arranging his boxes, of a pedant making a speech, of a boy repeating verses from memory, of a player acting on the stage, than the mere notions of invention, disposition, elocution, memory, and action. (Bacon, De Aug).
It is difficult to believe that when Prospero begged his daughter to give him the image of anything she might have retained in her memory of the time of their arrival on the island, the author did not have in mind the philosophical thesis on the art of memory that had been composed by Bacon ten or twelve years earlier.
Artificial heat Greenhouses were not known in Bacon’s time as he speaks of it in his Nov. Org., Aphorismorum 35. In Syl. Sylv., 412, Bacon speaks of housing hot country plants to save them, and in his Essay: Of Gardens, of stoving myrtles. The idea was introduced into England from Holland about the time of the revolution. The orangery at Heidelberg formed about the middle of the seventeenth century, is said to be the earliest conservatory on record. It is related that Albertus Magnus, entertaining the Emperor at Cologne during the winter, selected for the place of entertainment the garden of his monastery. (Grimm). 10 In the Maison Champétre, encyclopaedia of gardening and agriculture published in 1607, nothing is said of it, nor is there anything on the subject in the writings of Porta, though in his Natural Magic he has spoken of various modes of accelerating the growth of fruits and flowers.
Arts of nature In working upon and altering nature by art. (Bacon, Adv., Bk. II)
Arts of pleasure Are as many as the sense themselves are. To the eye belongs painting, with innumerable other arts of magnificence in matter of buildings, gardens, dresses, vases, gems; to the ear music, with its various apparatus of voices, wind, and strings; and of all the sensual arts those which relate to sight and hearing are accounted the most liberal; for as these two senses are the purest and most chaste, so the sciences which belong to them are the most learned; both being waited upon by the mathematics, and one having some relation to memory and demonstrations, the other to manners and affections of the mind. The rest of the sensual pleasures, with the arts appertaining to them, are held in less honour, as being nearer akin to luxury and magnificence. Unguents, perfumes, delicacies of the table, and especially stimulants of lust, are more in need of a censor to repress them than a master to teach them. (Bacon, Adv., Bk. II).
The pleasure of the eyes is chiefly painting, with a number of other arts (pertaining to magnificence) which respect houses, gardens, vestments, vases, cups, gems, and the like. The pleasure of the ears is music, with its various apparatus of voices, wind, and strings; water instruments, once regarded as the leaders of this art, are now almost out of use. (Bacon, De Aug).
Arundineous As it were; in some sort.
As for the daughters of King Edward IV., they thought King Richard had said enough for them; and took them to be but as of the King’s party, because they were in his power, and at his disposal. (Bacon, Henry VII.).
As charms are nonsense, nonsense has a charm. A favourite saying of Robert Fludd to his patients. (Rochester).
As good as the best (Bacon, Promus).
As the tongue Speaketh to the ear, so the gesture speaketh to the eye. (King James I).
Aspersion from aspergere, to sprinkle, as in baptism, with no sinister meaning. So used also by Fox, 1553–87. The primitive sense of the word, but not now used. Todd quoted Bacon for it.
There is to be found, besides the theological sense, much aspersion of philosophy. (Bacon).
Astonishment Caused by the fixing of the mind upon one object of cogitation, whereby it doth not spatiate and transcur, as it useth; for in wonder the spirits fly not, as in fear; but only settle, and are made less apt to move. (Bacon, Syl. Sylv).
Astrology It was Bacon’s opinion that the influence of the stars is exerted, not on individual men, but directly on masses of men, though he made an exception in favour of certain persons who, he said, “are more susceptible, and of softer wax, as it were, than the rest of their species.” It is clear that Cassius would not have been included by him in his excepted class.
As for astrology, it is so full of superstition that scarce anything can be discovered in it. (Bacon, De Aug., 1622).
Chiefly the mould of a man’s fortune is in himself. (Bacon, Essay: Of Fortune, 1607–12).
At rest As the Ark in the Temple. (Bacon, Adv., Bk. II).
Atalanta As the golden ball thrown before Atalanta, which while she goeth aside and stoopeth to take up she hindereth the race. (Bacon, Of the Interpretation of Nature).
Attach The Tower was chosen, that if Clifford should accuse great ones, they might, without suspicion or noise, be presently attached. (Bacon, Henry VII.).
Attendant winds This term is my own; and I have invented it lest the observation of them be forgotten or confused. My meaning is this. Take any country and divide the year into three, four, or five parts. If any wind blows there for two, three, or four to these parts, and a contrary wind for only one part, the wind which blows oftenest is called the attendant wind of that country. And the same is the case with respect to the weather. (Bacon, History of Winds). [Also see Names of Winds.]
Atheists The contemplative Atheist is rare, yet they seem to be more than they are, for all that impugn a received religion or superstition are, by the adverse part, branded with the name of Atheist; but the great Atheists indeed are hypocrites, which are ever handling holy things, but without feeling; as they needs must be cauterized in the end. (Bacon, Essay: Of Atheism).
Augustus As we see in Augustus Cæsar, (who was rather diverse from his uncle than inferior in virtue,) how when he died, he desired his friends about him to give him a Plaudite; as if he were conscient to himself that he had played his part well upon the stage. This part of knowledge we do report also as deficient: not but that it is practised too much, but it hath not been reduced to writing. And therefore lest it should seem to any that it is not comprehensible by axiom, it is requisite, as we did in the former that we set down some heads or passages of it. (Bacon, Adv., Bk. II).
In Bacon’s character of Augustus he acknowledges that he was inferior to Julius in strength of mind, but answers that he was superior in beauty and health of mind, Julius’ aspirations being restless, boundless, and inordinate; those of Augustus sober, well ordered, and within compass. (Bacon, Imago Civilis Augusti Cæsaris).
Authority For authority it is of two kinds: belief in an art and belief in a man. For things of belief in an art, a man may exercise them by himself; but for belief in a man, it must be by another. Therefore, if a man believe in astrology, and find a figure prosperous; or believe in natural magic, and that a ring with such a stone, or such a piece of living creature, carried, will do good, it may help his imagination. But all authority must be turned either upon an art or upon a man; and where authority is from one man to another, there the second must be ignorant, and such are witches and superstitious persons, whose beliefs, tied to their teachers, are in no wit controlled either by reason or experience (as) boys and young people, whose spirits easiliest take belief and imagination. (Bacon, Nat. Hist. 947).
Automatic musical instruments There were lately with us certain Batavians who had constructed a musical instrument which, when exposed to the rays of the sun, uttered harmonious sounds. It is probable this was caused by the expansion of heated air, which was able to impart motion to the elements. (Bacon, Phænomena Universi, previous to 1622).
7 McKenzie. Royal Masonic Eyclopaedia, p. 614
8 Bacon stops short in this quotation from Ephes. IV. 26. St. Paul continues: “Neither give place to the devil.” This portion of the text is alluded to in Othelo. Act II. Sc. 3: “It hath pleased the Devil; drunkenness to give place to the Devil Wrath.”
9 pp. 263–4
10 Deutsche Sagen
A (Latin)
A noxe teipsum A chiding or disgrace. (Bacon, Col. Good & Evil).
Ab omni parte beati Blessed in all respects. (Bacon).
Absurdis Absurd, is applied to the answer given by a deaf man (Sitrdus) which has nothing to do with the question, hence it signifies, deaf to reason, unreasonable. (Bacon, Essays: VI &XIVII).
Ac tibi pro tutis insignia facta placebunt And to you distinguished deeds please when they are cautious. (Bacon).
Actum erat de amicitia Was caused by friendship. (Bacon).
Ad castigationem, et non ad destructionem Punishing him, but not to destruction. (Bacon, Apologie, 1603).
Ad filios Artefius records the conversation wherein his master, Boemund, transmitted to him the first principles of all knowledge, and it is remarkable that in this and similar cases the disciple is called mi fili by his instructor, a circumstance which shows from what source Bacon derived the phrase ad filios, which appears in the titles of several of his early pieces. Even in the De Aug., the highest and most effectual form of scientific teaching is called the methodus ad filios.
I cannot think that the merit of this method had anything to do with secrecy. For the distinctive object of it is stated to be the coninuatio et ulterior progressus of knowledge; and its distinctive characteristic, the being solito apertior. Its aim was to transfer knowledge into the mind of the disciple in the same form in which it grew in the teacher’s mind, like a plant with its roots on, that it might continue to grow. Its other name is Traditio Lampadis, alluding to the Greek torch race, which was run, not between individuals, but between what we call sides.[Also see Traditio Lampadis].
The term filii alludes to the successive generations, not who should inherit the secret, but who should carry on the work. (Spedding).
Ad ollas carnium To the fleshpots. (Bacon, Adv., Bk. II).
Aequinoctia The equinoxes. (Bacon, Essays: XV).
Aërie mellis cœlestia dona The gift of heaven aërial honey. (Bacon, Adv., Bk. II; Virg. Georg. IV., 1).
Affectatio, ingenuitatis putredo lucens The same image occurs in Raleigh’s Lye: “go tell the Court it glows and shines like rotten wood.” (Bacon, De Aug., Bk. VI).
Alia Tiberio morum via Tiberius’ ways were different. (Bacon, Adv., Bk. II).
Aliqua sunt injuste facienda, ut multa juste fieri possint That there may be justice in many things there must be injustice in some. (Bacon, Adv., Bk. II).
Aliquid nimis Anything inappropriate. (Bacon).
Aliud agree Get immersed in other things. (Bacon).
Altum silentium A lofty silence. (Bacon, Apologie, 1603).
Amici fures temporis Friends are thieves of time. (Bacon, Adv., Bk. II).
Analogia The intention of this work of Cæsar was probably to determine uncertain points of language by the analogy of cases which were free from doubt. In the Origines of Isidorous, I. c. 27, we find an account of what grammarians mean by analogy. (Bacon, De Aug., Bk. I).
Anatomia vivorum Anatomy of the living subject. (Bacon, Adv., Bk. II).
Anchora spei An anchor of hope. This motto is also found in the Coat of Arms of George Puttenham; a shield with a hand coming out of a cloud and holding onto an anchor entwined with vine. [Also see Part II: Puttenham George; Part III: Arte of English Poesie]
Animi nil magnæ laudis egentes Souls that have no care for praise. (Bacon, Adv., Bk. II).
Souls that care not for praise. (Bacon, De Aug.; Virgil, Æn. V., 751).
Animo sedato et libero Calmer. (Bacon).
Annon sicut lac mulsisti me, et sicut cascum coagulasti me? Hast thou not drawn me forth like milk, and curdled me like cheese? (Bacon, Adv., Bk. I).
Ante omnia, fili, custody cor tuum; nam inde procedunt actiones vitæ Keep thy heart with all diligence, for thereout come the actions of thy life. (Bacon, Adv., Bk. II).
Antiperistasin This doctrine is of the increase of intensity of one of two contraries by the juxtaposition of the other, and is applied by Aristotle (Meteor. I. c.13) in the case of heat and cold, to explain the formation of hail. (Bacon, De Aug., Bk. II).
Antiquam exquirite matrem Seek out your ancient mother. (Bacon, Adv., Bk. II).
Antiquitas sœculi juventus mundi Early ages were the world’s youth. (Bacon, De Aug., Bk. I).
Writers, earlier than Bacon or contemporary with him, have given similar reflections. We may refer to Gilbert, to Galileo, to the Apologia pro Galileo of Campanella, and particularly to the Cena di Cenere of Giordano Bruno; also, in the second book of Esdras, and in Casmann’s Problemata Marina published in 1546.
Aqua regia Mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids; its power of dissolving gold is ascribed by Davy to the liberation of chlorine by the mutual action of the two acids, the different result in the case of silver arises from the insolubility of chloride of silver. (Bacon, Nov. Org., Aphorismorum XII).
Arcane impereii Mysteries of empire. (Bacon).
Ars inveniendi adolescit cum inventis Every act of discovery advances the art of discovery. (Bacon, Adv., Bk. II).
Artificialis conglaciationis aquæ The artificial congelation of water by snow and salt. (Bacon, De Aug., Bk. III).
Artiplicis Artichoke. (Bacon, Vitæ et Mortis; Syl. Sylv).
Ascendam, et ero similes altissimo I will ascend and be like unto the highest. (Bacon, Adv., Bk. II).
Aspera arteria Also called artier, name for the windpipe, and Greek equivalent τραχεία [tracheia] owe their origin to the theory according to which all the arteries are air-vessels. (Bacon, Syl. Sylv).
Audacter calumniare, semper aliquid hæret That the wounds they inflicted might heal, but would always leave a scar, taken from the advice given by Medius to Alexander’s sycophants. (Bacon, De Aug., Bk. VIII).
Augusto profluens, et quæ principem deceret, eloquentia fuit That his style of speech was flowing and prince like. (Bacon, Adv., Bk. I).
Aura leni Easy on the ear, a still small voice. (Bacon, De Aug., Bk. I).
Axiomata Bacon’s way of using the word axioma as if it were equivalent to enuntiatum or propositio he derived from Peter Ramus. [Also see Part II: Ramus Petrus; Part III: Dead Faith in Aristotle]
The word is used in the same way by Cicero, who probably took it from the Stoics. Bacon’s first instance resembles that which Aristotle gives in the Anal. Post. I. 8. But most of his other instances are of a different character. (Bacon, De Aug., Bk. II).