francis bacon the wisdom of the ancients

This opinion may, in some respect, be owing to the veneration I have for antiquity, but more to observing that some fables discover a great and evident similitude, relation, and connection with the thing they signify, as well in the structure of the fable as in the propriety of the names whereby the persons or actors are characterized insomuch, that no one could positively deny a sense and meaning to be from the first intended, and purposely shadowed out in them. Upon deliberate consideration, my judgment is, that a concealed instruction and allegory was originally intended in many of the ancient fables. This would be rash, and almost profane for, since religion delights in such shadows and disguises, to abolish them were, in a manner, to prohibit all intercourse betwixt things divine and human. And, certainly, it were very injudicious to suffer the fondness and licentiousness of a few to detract from the honour of allegory and parable in general. And though I have well weighed and considered all this, and thoroughly seen into the levity which the mind indulges for allegories and allusions, yet I cannot but retain a high value for the ancient mythology. Thus Chrysippus, like an interpreter of dreams, attributed the opinions of the Stoics to the poets of old and the chemists, at present, more childishly apply the poetical transformations to their experiments of the furnace. Nor is this only a late or unfrequent practice, but of ancient date and common even to this day. But this procedure has already been carried to excess and great numbers, to procure the sanction of antiquity to their own notions and inventions, have miserably wrested and abused the fables of the ancients. It is true, fables in general are composed of ductile matter, that may be drawn into great variety by a witty talent or an inventive genius, and be delivered of plausible meanings which they never contained. Many may imagine that I am here entering upon a work of fancy or amusement, and design to use a poetical liberty, in explaining poetical fables. This silence was succeeded by poetical fables and these, at length, by the writings we now enjoy so that the concealed and secret learning of the ancients seems separated from the history and knowledge of the following ages by a veil, or partition-wall of fables, interposing between the things that are lost and those that remain.

T he earliest antiquity lies buried in silence and oblivion, excepting the remains we have of it in sacred writ.

Francis bacon the wisdom of the ancients