Of Wisdom for a Man's Self - Francis Bacon

'Of Wisdom for a Man's Self' is a essay by the English philosopher and essayist Sir Francis Bacon. His uniquely convoluted style of writing is displayed throughout the essay.

-Sir Francis Bacon

Though this essay may seem incredibly long and complicated, don't worry, it's really not! We're going to go through this paragraph by paragraph. This'll take a while.

An ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is a shrewd thing in an orchard or garden. And certainly men that are great lovers of themselves waste the public. Divide with reason between self-love and society; and be so true to thyself, as thou be not false to others; specially to thy king and country.

So what does this mean? The reference to 'the ant' is a reference to the extremely well-knitted and intelligent community that they are members of, hence their wisdom. This community and its subsequent benefits are made possible solely because of the hard-working and relentless nature of the ants. But despite all of these achievements, an ant's overall contribution to the orchard or garden is very little. Even though it has the power and capability to do so much, it is not, as it is too busy obsessing over itself. Humans too exhibit these traits. There are many people who will slave away at their jobs to better their own standing or to buy a better house but who put little effort into the society they live in. Francis Bacon appears to be criticizing such people, stating that one must also work for the good of others, especially the king and country.

It is a poor centre of a man’s actions, himself. It is right earth. For that only stands fast upon his own centre; whereas all things that have affinity with the heavens move upon the centre of another, which they benefit. The referring of all to a man’s self is more tolerable in a sovereign prince; because themselves are not only themselves but their good and evil is at the peril of the public fortune.

Bacon continues his criticism of overly self-indulgent people. It is not  a good thing to be so enthralled with yourself that you forget those around you. This self-obsession however, is okay in a prince or a ruler. Why? Because that ruler is not just himself. He is a representative of the people, of the kingdom. If he is unhappy, it will affect the masses.

But it is a desperate evil in a servant to a prince, or a citizen in a republic. For whatsoever affairs pass such a man’s hands, he crooketh them to his own ends; which must needs be often eccentric to the ends of his master or state. Therefore let princes, or states, choose such servants as have not this mark; except they mean their service should be made but the accessory. 

It is a terrible crime for a public servant, or a government employee, to take a cut of the prince's money illegally. It's a terrible crime when a the government's money is siphoned off by fat corrupt politicians who do nothing benefiting the people. Sounds familiar? So what's Bacon's solution? Simple. He suggests that people who are corrupt should not be public servants. 

That which maketh the effect more pernicious is that all proportion is lost. It were disproportion enough for the servant’s good to be preferred before the master’s; but yet it is a greater extreme, when a little good of the servant shall carry things against a great good of the master’s.

When you, a public servant, steal government-given funds, you're throwing the whole system out of balance, out of proportion. You become a slave to your greed. You may think that you really need the money, that you need to buy a car or a house or something, but what you're really doing is thwarting a larger good. If the money that you've stolen had reached the people, it would have done much more good than it has done in your hands. This is what is worsening the entire situation, as the theft is not only hurting the benefactor, it's hurting the would-have-been receivers more.

And yet that is the case of bad officers, treasurers, ambassadors, generals, and other false and corrupt servants; which set a bias upon their bowl, of their own petty ends and envies, to the overthrow of their master’s great and important affairs. And for the most part, the good such servants receive is after the model of their own fortune; but the hurt they sell for that good is after the model of their master’s fortune. 

Corrupt public servants are like that. They steal money from the government for their own gain, increasing their power. The more power that they get, the more money they get, through both illegal and legal means. They benefit from crashing the system while the governments plans go to waste.

And certainly it is the nature of extreme self-lovers, as they will set an house on fire, and it were but to roast their eggs; and yet these men many times hold credit with their masters, because their study is but to please them and profit themselves; and for either respect they will abandon the good of their affairs.

Corrupt and self-obsessed politicians don't really care about the welfare of the country. Like the metaphor of a man burning down a house to roast his eggs implies, these corrupt public servants put their own interests far above the collective interests of the state. So why are these corrupt self-indulgent people still holding such powerful positions?? Well, Francis Bacon believes that it's because these corrupt people are very good at two things : pleasing those more powerful than them and profiting themselves. For either of these two, they will gladly forget the good of the people.

Wisdom for a man’s self is, in many branches thereof, a depraved thing. It is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house somewhat before it fall. It is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out the badger, who digged and made room for him. It is the wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears when they could devour.

We're now in the last paragraph of the essay, and Bacon is coming to his conclusion. For the first time in the essay so far he mentions the phrase 'Wisdom for a Man's Self'. Thus the relevance of the title is that the wisdom of a human being is not necessarily a good thing. It can drive people to do horrible unforgivable things. Examples are given through animals using betrayal and deceit to further their own means.

But that which is specially to be noted is, that those which (as Cicero says of Pompey) are sui amantes, sine rivali [lovers of themselves without a rival] are many times unfortunate. And whereas they have all their times sacrificed to themselves, they become in the end themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy of fortune, whose wings they sought by their self-wisdom to have pinioned.

Francis Bacon winds up his emotional essay with this stirring conclusion. Despite the fact that corrupt embezzlers have spent their entire lives manipulating and scheming for wealth,power, and riches, it is no guarantee for the continuity of such. The majority of the people who've cheated their way into money and power are often seen squandering it and ending up penniless. Wealth never stays with it's possessor permanently and they, more often than not, suffer ignominy and deprivation.    

The author uses a brilliant implied metaphor in the closing sentence of the essay. The inconsistency of fortune (the manner in which money and power come and go) cannot be thoroughly predicted by anyone. It is metaphorized as a bird-type entity. The dark irony is made ever visible in the sentence. Though the corrupt have sacrificed for themselves all of their lives (owing to their self-indulgent nature), they ironically end up sacrificed to the inconsistency of fortune, who's wings they thought they had bound by their wisdom. 

Nobody can tell what's going to happen. 

Karma always comes around. 

Yes Your Honesty

 Yes Your Honesty is an extract from the book, "Anything can Happen", written by both George Papashvily and Helen Waite Papashvily. George and Helen were married writers who had immigrated to America in the 1920's.  The book is mainly based on George's experiences as an immigrant. The language, broken and in Georgian style, adds a lot to the authenticity of the text.

The story focuses on George and his friends. One day, they're chilling in the park. One of his friends gets brilliant idea to steal a bouquet of flowers from a tree. He plucks it and a cop promptly comes and writes them a summons, demanding they either plead guilty and pay a fine or appear in court. All of George's friends take the easy way out and pay the fine, but not George. He is very stubborn.

George feels that it would be lying to say he did something that he didn't do. He finds a lawyer, learns what to say and appears in court. When the judge addresses him he makes the mistake of referring to the judge as, 'Your Honesty', hence the title. The judge silences the laughing courtroom and listens to George's argument. George explains himself and defends his case.

Throughout the court case we learn some important information about George. He was in the army and killed hundreds of people. He beat up a guy who gave poisoned meat to his dog. The judge is impressed by this and acquits him of all charges. The story ends with  the judge shaking George's hand and everyone being happy.

There's 0^0 symbolism in this story. There's nothing deep about anything, so don't worry! The moral of the story is that honesty will always triumph in the end. The author gives a very idealistic and Utopian idea of justice : a system that acquits the innocent and punishes the guilty.

The Coffee House of Surat

      The Coffee House of Surat is a short story written in the 19th century by the acclaimed Russian thinker Leo Tolstoy. It deals with the idea of religious assurity. This is done both directly and through an elaborate metaphor involving the sun that makes an appearance in the second half of the story. I'll explain this in more detail below.

      An angry banished Persian theologian strikes up a heated debate in a local coffee house in Surat (hence the name) as to whether or not there is a god. Everyone presents opposing and vehemently clashing ideas. For example, the African slave worships a small idol made of wood from the fetish tree (that's actually a tree, I googled it ) whereas the Brahmin, the Catholic, and the Jew all have their distinctly conflicting theories on God and the religion through which to communicate with him. They argue.

      Everyone is shouting and arguing intensely in this heated argument, everyone except for a Chinaman, a student of Confucius who sat silently in the bar drinking his opium. When people asked him for his opinion, he delivered a long and convoluted metaphor involving the sun through which he shows all of them to be wrong. The metaphor is a story in itself and takes up the second half of the story. It goes something like this:

      There's a blind guy on an island called Sumatra. He's become blind from incessantly looking at the sun in a foolish attempt to discover what it is. Eventually, he's come to the conclusion that as the sun s neither solid, liquid or gas, it must not exist at all! As he's blind and cannot see its light he becomes further convinced of his own theory.

      His slave lights a small coconut lamp in the darkness of the hut and begins to move about. This sparks a conversation on the sun, which the blind man vehemently protests does not exist. A fisherman, an Indian, an Egyptian, and an Englishman all joined in the argument, providing their own theories behind the sun. You can already see the similarity between this metaphor and the real-ife instance in the coffee house.

     Eventually the pilot of a ship begins to speak, dropping enlightenment bombs on everyone. He's like, "You're all wrong! The sun shines everywhere, it's nothing to do with where you're from. The sun doesn't shine for you!".  With this the Chinaman snaps out of his metaphor and concludes his argument.

     The Chinaman believes that, when it comes to faith, it is pride which causes emnities between people. Every nation or religion attempts to confine God to the walls of their temples. They all want a 'special' God for themselves.

     The Chinaman then puts forward the idea that the world is a temple, an undying tribute to the diversity and complexity of our creator. He says that, "The higher a man's conception of God ,the better he will know him and will emulate or imitate his goodness. Thus, don't judge anyone, don't criticize anyone's beliefs. If you're a true man of God you won't try to convert people, you'll accept them the way they are"

      There is not much symbolism or material for deconstruction in the piece ; the message is quite simple and straightforward. The predominant themes are unity through diversity, and a sadly unusual open-mindedness when it comes to religion. The metaphor can be seen as Tolstoy's attempt to analyse the problem by stepping back and looking at the larger picture, one free from sentiments and other personal bias.

The Story of an Hour

“The Story of an Hour” is a famous story by the 19^th century American author Kate Chopin.  Kate Chopin was prominently known for using her stories to express her feminist ideology as you will see in this story. I will provide a brief summary below.

The story is told in third person and narrates an hour in the life of a married woman by the name of Mrs. Mallard who has a kind of heart disease wherein a heart attack can be triggered through any sudden shock . It begins with Mrs. Mallard discovering that her husband had died in a disastrous train crash. The story follows the thoughts and emotions felt by the protagonist. She cries at first, no doubt deeply saddened by the death of her husband, who,  as mentioned by her in the story, she had loved .

This is where the story deviates significantly from the norm. Despite her genuine grief, she recognizes something incredulously alluring. The prospect of her freedom, from this point in time up until her death, dawns on her. Sure, she had loved her husband, but, to quote a line from the story:

“What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being”

In the course of narrating this one hour, Kate Chopin’s feminist ideas come into play. Through usage of expressions of jubilance and overwhelming joy, she frames an alluring picture of the freedom that the protagonist has discovered. The freedom of living for herself. The very existence of this joy contrasts the institution of marriage; it shows that while marriage may be beneficial, its absence can be equally beneficial, albeit for different reasons.

                At this point there is something I feel compelled to add. I find this piece unique as compared to other feminist literature and poetry. While many of the latter consistently employ a male figure to personify the injustices perpetrated by men, this story does not. The woman recognizes her freedom, her opportunities, and her empowerment, all without any ‘man-bashing’.

The responses of her family are very interesting. Mrs. Mallard has locked herself into her room and her family members are knocking on the door, worried that she is traumatised or sick when in fact, she’s revelling in her new-found freedom.

Mrs. Mallard emerges from her room with a victorious sense of freedom, an independence she could never have imagined. As she descends the stairs however, her husband enters the house door. It would appear that he had been far from the scene of the accident and had no clue that there had, in fact, been an accident. Mrs. Mallard let out a piercing cry and fell to the round, her hand clutching her throbbing chest. By the time she reached the hospital, the doctors declared her dead.

The cause of death – joy that kills.

The writer finishes the story by declaring that the doctors have attributed her death to ‘joy that kills’. The very idea, that the woman would have been overjoyed to see her husband, contrasts bleakly with the overpowering joy that the female protagonist experienced prior to her death.

The above irony is Kate Chopin’s testament to a male-dominated society, a society in which the suppression of a woman’s identity through marriage is celebrated, and her liberation is mourned. 

The False Gems - Guy de Maupassant

The false gems is a simple and straightforward story albeit with a couple of convoluted morals. Before I begin with the interpretation, I’ll provide the summary.

The story is about a man whose yearly income is just about average. Though they lead a happy married life, he abhors her habit of wearing fake jewellery. One day she gets a cold and dies. Sad and pennyless, the man finds himself broke and homeless. Desperate for a meal, he gets the idea to sell his dead wife’s fake jewellery. The jeweller however, tells him that the necklace is real and is worth 4 years of his salary. Overjoyed, the man ecstatically sells all of the jewellery and becomes rich again. The story ends on an ironic note. The last lines are as follows:

Six months after, he married again. His second wife was a very virtuous woman;

but had a terrible temper. She made his life very miserable.

The moral of the story is that honesty is not always that important.  He was happier with a woman who was unfaithful and dishonest, although he didn't know it, just as he didn't know that her false gemstones were actually the real thing. Finding what he thought would make him happy, he actually had a worse life.