Bacon: A Practical Moralist Full of Worldly Wisdom

Bacon is one of the interesting figures of the period of the reformation and the
revival of learning in the history of English Literature. Francis Bacon has
always been widely read and admired for his essays as they embrace issues of
the intellectual and moral development of the mankind. He deals with a wide
range of subjects and they are called “dispersed meditation”. They are examples
of that wisdom which arises out of a universal insight into the affairs of the
world. “They come home” Bacon says, “to men’s business and bosums”. In his
essays, Bacon reveals him as a practical moralist full of worldly wisdom like a
downright utilitarian he insists that knowledge is to be judged by its results. As
an expedient thinker, he judges man in terms of tangible success and failure.
The essays like “Of Great Place” “Of Marriage and Single Life” and “Of Love”
bear in a small scale as the evidence of Bacon’s great men of the wide range of
subjects, his utilitarian morality, his wisdom and his empirical basis of
experience and knowledge.

The essay “Of Great Place” is about Bacon’s keen observation of the people
holding dignified positions. Here, the essayist talks about the paradoxical and
ironical situations of the people who aspire to reach a position. He relates
hardship of offices, opportunities of great place and rules and conducts in
keeping the dignity of the very place one is holding. Bacon notices that men
seek high positions and they are eager to enjoy power and domination over the
others but in reality they loss their liberty. To reach a high position, one has to
work hard. He has to go through or deal and suffering Bacon observer: “The
seeking unto place is laborious and by pains men come to greater pains and it is
sometimes bare”.

In the essay “Of Marriage and Single Life” Bacon articulates his utilitarian
views about married life and single life. He also mentions the limitation of the
kind of role that a single man can play. He compares a married man to a
hostage. He does not enjoy liberty in the complete sense being got married. The
very thought of the prospects of his married life contrasts his freedom. A single
man enjoys liberty. He can skip all sorts of social bondage. Bacon’s views about
the treatment of women by men especially when they are married are nakedly
utilitarian: “Wives are young men’s mistresses; comparison for middle age: and
old man’s nurse”. The wives are nothing but the barrier for the man becoming
success in life. They always hold back the man to proceed onto the progress.
But yet Francis Bacon was reputed by one of the wise men that made answer to
the question, when a man should marry,—A young man not yet, an elder man
not at all.

In the essays “Of Revenge” Bacon categorizes two kinds of talking revenge.
One is personal and the other is public revenge as it involves the goodness of
the country and that of the common public but he discourages talking the
personal revenge. It causes harm not only to the people involved in it but also to
the jurisdiction procedure of the sate. By taking one’s personal revenge, one in
one way or another insults the laws which is very necessary to run a country.
Besides, it is not good for the person who considers talking revenge or who
plots the way to take revenge. It wants him a lot of time. It makes him feel
uneasy at all times.

In the essay “Of Love” Bacon observes love from a utilitarian point of view. His
attitudes towards love are down to the earth. He suggests keeping it apart from
one’s serious activities. He never idealizes love. As such, he has a critical
attitude to it. In the very beginning of the essay, Bacon describes love as
something harmful. Love is presentable more in the healer than in life. It is
compared with siren. He defines it into different categories. His categorization
and treatment of love involves some sort of moral guidance. Bacon’s treatment
of love defines into different categories and their utilities involve some sort of
moral guidance: “Nuptial love maketh mankind; friendly love perfected it;
but wanton love corrupted and embossed it”.

Streaks of morality run through in many of Bacon’s essays. His sense of

morality and his utilitarian views about love are intermingled. At times, his
renaissance spirits of seeing things from different antithetical as well as
contrasting points of views and his rational inquiry and criticism analyze what
men do rather than what men should do. Bacon stresses upon the teaching of
practical morality and essays are designed to make the readers examine rather
than accept ideas. There is a balance in the excessive and moderate views of
subject. Bacon’s observations are the results of an intensely practical mind. In
reality, many of us may not support all the ideas of Francis Bacon written in his
essays because of different religious points of views.