Bacon’s essays as dispersed meditations

INTRODUCTION
The father of English essay, Sir Francis Bacon was a busy man of the world. He was a keen and intelligent observer of man and his life. He took the outward form of the essay from the French writer and philosopher Montaigne in as much as his own essays are brief and incomplete in the sense that they explore only a few aspects of a subject and do not pretend to be thorough, systematic and exhaustive. He means by the word ‘essay’ (as he says) “certain brief notes set down rather significantly than curiously”. A man of such discursive interests, who took all knowledge for the province, he used the essay form as a receptacle for detached thoughts. He calls them “dispersed meditations”.
DEVELOPMENT OF THOUGHT
Bacon was fully justified in describing his essays as “dispersed meditations”. He also described his essays as brief notes set down rather significantly than curiously, using the word “curiously” to mean elaborately. Indeed, Bacon regarded the essays as a receptacle for detached thoughts. Many of his essays indeed resemble notebook jottings. Some of his essays, especially the earlier ones, are strings of sentences that read like maxims. These sentences are not linked by any development of ideas. There is of course no digression from the central subject. Almost every essay is a miscellaneous collection of ideas relating to a particular subject.
Of course, Bacon does not stray away from the subject that he places before himself. There are no digression or divagations in his essays, nothing irrelevant or unrelated to the theme. He does not allow his mind or fancy to loiter and roam. But we cannot describe his essays as well-knit compositions because there are no tight connections between the various ideas, and the ideas do not seem to flow from one an other. We cannot claim that an essay by Bacon is a structural unity. Ideas have been put together in his essays almost at random. And what is more remarkable is that in the interests of brevity and condensation of thought, even conjunctions and other logical connections are sometimes left out.
His earlier essays are very brief in length. The ideas have not been developed. The sentences are all crisp, short and sententious. Each sentence stands by itself, the concentrated expression of weighty thought. There is so much of condensation that each sentence could easily be developed into a paragraph. This is not to say that each sentence does the work of a paragraph but that it contains matter that could be elaborated into a paragraph. As Hugh Walker remarks these essays (such as Of Studies) read like running analysis of paragraphs. Bacon does not treat the subject fully; he expresses an idea in a few words and then passes on to the next idea, to be expressed in equally terse terms.
The essay, Of Truth, for instance, gives us a number of ideas on the subject. There is certainly a resemblance of what may be called a logical development in the essay, and yet this essay can best be described as a collection of ideas that do not strictly grow from one another. Bacon begins with the idea that standards of truth in religious, philosophical, and moral spheres keep changing from time to time. Then he proceeds to examine the tendency of human beings to feel more pleased by lies than by truth, and finds it difficult to explain why people should tell lies for the sake of lies. He next dwells upon the harm that is done by the lies that sink into the minds of people and settle down there. He goes on to say that truth is the supreme good for human beings, elaborating this idea by referring to God’s gift of reason to man. He next speaks of the value of truth in the sphere of ordinary daily life and the degradation and disgrace that falsehood brings. The essay concludes with a warning that the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith will receive their due punishment on the Judgment Day. Bacon does not, in this essay, offer a particular thesis on the subject of truth but merely records his thoughts as they come. This essay, which is remarkable for various reasons, cannot be said to be an elaborate analysis of truth or the psychology of falsehood. It is simply a repository of the thoughts that might occur to any scholarly type of man who sits down for half an hour and meditates upon the subject.
The essay, Of Marriage and Single Life, is an even more convincing illustration of this point. Having said at the outset that wife and children are impediments to great enterprises, he offers the advice that those who have children should devote themselves more to future welfare because their children will grow up and live in the future and that a man without a family may, however, devote himself mainly to the present. He then goes on to give us a few reasons why some people wish to remain single. Next, he tells us which type of life, married or single, is most suited to different categories of people- churchmen, judges and magistrates, and soldiers. He then describes a wife and children as a humanizing influence upon a man and abruptly passes on to an entirely different observation, namely that grave natures, led by custom, are commonly loving husbands. This is followed by a remark that chaste women are often proud of their chastity. A husband who is wise, we are told, will command a wife’s loyalty and obedience. It is obvious that Bacon is putting together whatever thoughts occur to him on the subject of marriage. In the concluding paragraph the same thing happens. After telling us that a wife is useful at almost every stage of life, Bacon abruptly proceeds to point out that bad husbands have very good wives. There is absolutely no connection between these two ideas in the preceding paragraph. They are significantly set down, in the sense that they are profound thoughts expressing the wide and ripe wisdom of their author gathered from books and experiences and observation of life but they are no dealt with elaborately. Indeed, this essay is a glaring example of how ideas have been jumbled together.
Even the essay, Of Studies, is full of dispersed meditations. Bacon here first tells us the three chief uses of studies; he then speaks of those who spend too much time in studies, those who use studies too much for ornament, and those who form judgments wholly by the rules emerging from their studies. He then goes on to speak of the value of practical experience which is needed to add to the values of studies. And then, even more abruptly, he goes on to say that crafty men condemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them. In the second paragraph, Bacon tells us why we should study and then abruptly classifies books into three or four categories- those that are to be tasted, those that are to be swallowed, those that are to be chewed and digested, and finally those that are to be read “by deputy”. In the paragraph that follows he speaks of the contribution that reading, conference, and writing make towards the development of a man. The essay concludes with a description of how different branches of studies mould the mind differently. In short, we have, in this essay also, a collection or compendium of ideas. We get several mental jokes in the course of reading this essay because of the various transitions of thought.
It would, however be a mistake to call all the essays of Bacon “dispersed meditations”. There are some which have received at his hand, a rather detailed treatment, and which cannot be termed as “sketchy”. In these essays, Bacon finds room for conjunctions and connective clauses. Ideas are not left undeveloped and transitions from one thought to another are not so abrupt. For example, the essay Of Friendship has greater length than can strictly be justified by the ideas expressed. Too much space has been given to illustrating the statement that even great and strong historical personalities felt the need for friendship. Apart from that, the author is quite logical in telling us what he calls the principal fruits of friendship. Each fruit of friendship has properly been handled and the development of ideas in each paragraph is logical. We cannot bring against this essay the charge that there are abrupt transitions of thought. Similar is the case with essays like: Of Empire, Of Seditions and Troubles, Of the True Greatness of Kingdoms. The “dispersed meditations” have been given a “rich vesture”, even while there is an attempt to bring them into a chosen knit whole.
CONCLUSION
In the light of above said, we can say that it would not be possible to put all the essays of Bacon in the category of dispersed meditations, or to say that all of them are brief notes. His earlier essays indeed resemble notebook jottings-condensed, pithy statements strung together with no apparent connection except in their relation to the subject. But in his later essays he has taken trouble to enrich his style. These essays deal with a variety of subjects but they are no longer aphoristic. There is an attempt to bring out some connection and continuity in the ideas and thought expressed. They are still meditations. But not quite so dispersed.