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ABSTRACT
Francis Bacon’s political thought cannot be understood without a close reading of his discussions about human emotions and the role they play from our private to public spheres of interaction. This paper discusses Bacon’s widespread treatment of envy as a particularly significant source of political strife within states which, when unattended, leads to civil war. Bacon rejects envy as a ‘private’ passion. As a ‘public’ passion, however, it becomes a tool for preventing the very outcome to which ‘private’ envy is inclined. Envy thus serves as a useful political tool that uncovers ambitious men ‘when they grow too great’ and helps political leaders ‘in handling sedition’. Envy, moreover, is also a central concept that elucidates Bacon’s discussions of ‘moral’ and ‘civil’ philosophy as two areas of study that need to be united for proper political rule. The paper opens with an analysis of Bacon’s treatment of envy in his Essays or Counsels Civil and Moral and his writings on historiography; it then connects Bacon’s understanding of envy and civil war with the writings of Thomas Hobbes and Michel de Montaigne; finally, it concludes with a discussion of the role of envy in Bacon’s civil and moral philosophy.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Shannon Stimson, Samuel Zeitlin, and Peter D. Breiner, who reviewed earlier drafts of this paper. In addition, I would like to thank the Canterbury Institute at Oxford, especially Connor Grubaugh, for allowing me to present the paper at their annual conference in August 2022. I would also like to think Emily Nacol for her inclusion of this paper in a panel on ‘Property and Impropriety in Early Modern Thought’ for the 2022 meeting of the American Political Science Association.
Notes
1 Plutarchus, Moralia, Volume VII, 95.
2 Nichomachean Ethics, 1105b21–23.
3 Plutarchus, Moralia, Volume VII, 97–103. Plutarch writes that envy is a signal, given off by others, of perceived success: ‘envy increases with the apparent progress of the envied in virtue. This explains why when Themistocles was still a youth he said that he was doing nothing remarkable, as he was not yet envied’.
4 ‘Of Envy’ in the Essays or Counsels Civil and Moral in Francis Bacon, The Works of Francis Bacon, 103–8.
5 Ibid. Bacon writes of both love and envy, uterque facile ascendit in oculos’ – each ascends easily into the eye.
6 Ibid.
7 Cf. Wormald, Francis Bacon , 109. A parallel point to Wormwald’s claim is made by Ian Box in his essay ‘Bacon’s Political Philosophy’ in Markku Peltonen, The Cambridge Companion to Bacon, Cambridge Companions. (Cambridge ; Cambridge University Press, 1996).
8 Bacon, The Essays or Counsels Civil and Moral, x.
9 As a preliminary analysis of this final edited version, Bacon kept the same general order for the last five essays of the first version, placing them also near the end. He changed the order of the first set of essays in the first version, however.
10 Bacon and Vickers, The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral, xviii.
11 Bacon, The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral, Vickers, Oxford World’s Classics, xviii. Vickers’ introduction points out the similarity in structure between conduct books, such as Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier, and Bacon’s Essays.
12 ‘Of Truth’ in The Works of Francis Bacon, 81–84.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 ‘Of Nature in Men’ in The Works of Francis Bacon, 211–3. It is worth noting the scientific and experimental language that Bacon is employing in this statement.
17 Ibid.
18 Wormald, Francis Bacon, 13.
19 ‘Of Nature in Men’ in The Works of Francis Bacon, 211–3.
20 ‘Of Envy’ in The Works of Francis Bacon, 103–9. Emphasis mine. On the physiological connection between envy and vision, Bacon remarks, ‘Some have been so curious to note, that the times when the strike or percussion of an envious eye doth most hurt, are when the party envied is beheld in glory or triumph; for that sets the edge upon envy’.
21 Ibid., 'A man that hath no virtue in himself ever envieth virtue in others’. Cf. Girard, A Theater of Envy. Girard notably describes the 17th century conception (and use) of envy as a source of mimetic desire.
22 Ibid. ‘Lastly, near kinsfolk, and fellows in office, and those that have been bred together, are more apt to envy their equals when they are raised; for it doth upbraid unto them their own fortunes … ’
23 Ibid. ‘Envy is as the sunbeams, that beat hotter upon a bank or steep rising ground than upon a flat. And for the same reason, those that are advanced by degrees are less envied than those that are advanced suddenly, and per saltum.’ Later, ‘for nothing increaseth envy more than an unnecessary and ambitious engrossing of business, and nothing doth extinguish envy more than for a great person to preserve all other inferior officers in their full rights and preemincences of their places; for by that there be so many screens between him and envy’.
24 “Of Ambition” in The Works of Francis Bacon, 206–9.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid. ‘For in that course a man doth but disavow fortune; and seemeth to be conscious of his own want in worth’. The footnote to this sentence reads, ‘The undisguised assumption and display of greatness is less subject to envy than any furtive attempt to withdraw it from observation: for by seeming to be ashamed of his position, a man admits that he is unworthy of it; and so “disavows” (i.e. declines to justify) or impeaches (i.e. throws the blame upon) fortune’. Much like Machiavelli, Bacon believes that a man of greatness must assert his fortune, and never convey shame or ambivalence over it. Bacon’s reasoning is connected to the Florentine’s ragion di stato, where the political leader must recognize the reality of his coveted position and protect it at all costs.
27 Ibid. ‘The Cure for envy is like cure of witchcraft; one must “remove the lot” and to lay it upon another; for which purpose, the wiser sort of great persons bring in ever upon the stage somebody upon whom to derive the envy that would come upon themselves’. Bacon adds a couple of lines after, ‘of all other affections [envy] is the most importune and continual; for of other affections there is occasion given but now and then. And therefore it is was well said, Invidia festos dies non agit, for it is ever working upon some or other … ’
28 Ibid., 86. ‘Death hath this also, that it openeth the gate to good fame and extinguisheth envy’.
29 Ibid., 103–9.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid.
32 Cf. G. Zeitlin, “The Heat of a Feaver”. Zeitlin, referencing Bacon’s essay ‘Of the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates’, notes that the counterbalance to civil war for Bacon is outward expansion and foreign war, both of which reduce population size and internal strife.
33 “Of Seditions and Troubles” in The Works of Francis Bacon, 123–31.
34 Ibid. Latin translation taken from another version of the work: Bacon’s Essays and Wisdom of the Ancients (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1884).
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid. ‘When any of the four pillars of government are weakened (which are religion, justice, counsel, and treasure) men had need to pray for fair weather’.
38 Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, 39.
39 The Advancement, 11.
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid., 130.
42 Ibid., 134.
43 Ibid.
44 Cf. “Of Truth” in The Works of Francis Bacon, 81–4.
45 ‘Of the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates’ in The Works of Francis Bacon, 176–88. Cf. Zeitlin, 661. Zeitlin writes, ‘Importantly, civil war, for Bacon, is conceived as partially a matter of sovereign causation – a sovereign can hinder the growth of the causes of civil war by ameliorating poverty, redistributing wealth, and concerning himself with population size’.
46 Ibid.
47 “Of Seditions and Troubles” in The Works of Francis Bacon, 123–31.
48 White, Peace Among the Willows, 63. ‘To Bacon, as to Bodin, Shakespeare, and Hobbes, civil war was something which a good man must view with loathing and a wise man with dread … Indeed, his essay, "Of Seditions and Troubles" is clearly addressed to princes and urges princes to protect themselves from sedition. Certainly no one so profoundly impressed by the Tudor liberation of England from the Wars of the Roses as Bacon could have regarded monarchy as immune from civil war.’
49 Wormald, Francis Bacon, 48.
50 Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, 57. ‘History is natural, civil, ecclesiastical, and literary; whereof the first three I allow as extant, the fourth I note as deficient’. Cf. Dean, “Sir Francis Bacon’s Theory of Civil History-Writing”.
51 The Advancement, 62.
52 Ibid.
53 Ibid. Emphasis mine.
54 Ibid.
55 Ibid., 66.
56 Ibid., 63. ‘But for modern histories, whereof there are some few very worthy, but the greater part beneath mediocrity … I cannot fail to represent to your Majesty the unworthiness of the history of England in the main continuance thereof … ’
57 Ibid., ‘supposing that it would be honour for your Majesty … if this island of Great Britain, as is now joined in monarchy for ages to come, so were joined in one history for the times passed, after the manner of the sacred history.’
58 Ibid. Bacon is describing the Union of the Roses under King Henry VII (1485) and the Union of the Crowns under King James VI (1609).
59 Bacon, The History of the Reign of King Henry VII, 3.
60 Ibid., xv. Vickers makes this point in his introduction to the work.
61 White, “The English Solomon”.
62 Bacon, The History, xxiii.
63 Ibid.
64 ‘Of Simulation and Dissimulation’ in The Works of Francis Bacon, 95–9. The italics are original to Bacon.
65 Ibid.
66 Ibid.
67 The Advancement, 141–2. Emphasis mine.
68 Zeitlin, “The Heat of a Feaver”.
69 Ibid. Cf. Hobbes, Leviathan, introduction[1] where he likens sedition to ‘sickness’ and civil war to ‘death’ in the body politic. Montaigne describes civil war as death in his essay ‘On Physiognomy’. Bacon describes public envy, which leads to sedition and civil war, in ‘Of Envy’ as a ‘disease in a State like to infection’.
70 “Of Envy” in The Works of Francis Bacon, 103–9.
71 See the introduction by Vickers in his edited version of the Essays, xxxvi.
72 Montaigne and Frame, The Complete Essays of Montaigne, 116. ‘We are all huddled and concentrated in ourselves and our vision is reduced to the length of our nose … Seeing our civil wars, who does not cry out this mechanism is being turned topsy turvy and that the judgment day has us by the throat, without reflecting that many worse things have happened, and that 10,000 parts of the world, to our one, are meanwhile having a gay time? Myself considering their licentiousness and impunity and amazed to see our wars so gentle and mild. When the hail comes down on a man's head it seems to him that the whole hemisphere is in Tempest and storm.’
73 ‘To grief there is a limit, not so to fear’ Latin Translation from Bacon’s Essays and Wisdom of the Ancients (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1884), 117. The quotations are from ‘Of Seditions and Troubles’ in The Complete Works of Francis Bacon, 123–31.
74 Ibid., 795.
75 Ibid. ‘Phthisis is for them [referring to the poor] a cough; dysentery a looseness of the bowels, pleurisy a cold; and as they give them gentle names, so they bear them gently’.
76 Ibid.
77 Ibid. Referring to the French Wars of Religion.
78 Ibid.
79 Ibid.
80 Ibid., 797. ‘But is there any political wrong so bad that it is worth fighting with so deadly a drug as civil war? Not even, said Favonius, the usurpation of control over a state by a tyrant. Plato also will not allow of a country's peace being disturbed in order to cure it, and will accept no reform that is paid for by the blood and ruin of its citizens.’
81 Bunce, “Thomas Hobbes’ Relationship with Francis Bacon”.
82 Pt. II Ch. Xvii “Of the Causes, Generation, and Definition of a Commonwealth” in : Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Tuck (ed.) Rev. student edition, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought (Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 107.
83 Cf. Thivet, “Thomas Hobbes”. Thivet labels envy as one of the passions ‘of war’ that ‘contradict the ends defined by reason (i.e. are contrary to individual self-preservation)’.
84 Arash Abizadeh, quoting De Corpore (1655) in: Hobbes and the Two Faces of Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 27.
85 Hobbes, Leviathan, Tuck (ed.) 108.
86 Mark, “The Natural Laws of Good Manners”. Clifton adds Strauss, Oakeshott, Walzer, and Pettit as scholars who have read Hobbes’ treatment of glory as fatally connected to comparison.
87 Pt. I ‘Of Man’ Section 7 in: Hobbes and Tuck, Leviathan, 76. Cf. Clifton, 402, who follows Arash Abizadeth in describing this phenomenon in Hobbes’ thought as “prickliness.”
88 Abizadeh, “Hobbes on the Causes of War”.
89 Leviathan, Pt. II Ch. XVII ‘Of the Causes, Generation, and Definition of a Commonwealth’ in: Hobbes, Leviathan, 108.
90 Leviathan, Pt. I Ch. Xiii ‘Of the Natural Condition of Mankind’ in: Hobbes and Tuck, Leviathan, 77.
91 Montaigne and Frame, The Complete Essays of Montaigne, 153. This view is echoed later by Rousseau.
92 Leviathan, Pt. I Ch. XIII ‘Of the Natural Condition of Mankind’ in: Hobbes, Leviathan, 75.
93 ‘Of Envy’ in The Works of Francis Bacon, 103–9.
94 Leviathan, Pt. I Ch. X ‘Of Power, Worth, Dignity, Honour, and Worthiness’ in: Hobbes, Leviathan, Tuck (ed.) 50.
95 Hobbes, Dialogue, Behemoth, & Rhetoric, 85.
96 Leviathan, Pt. II Ch. XIX ‘Of the several kinds of commonwealth’ in: Hobbes, 121.
97 Leviathan, Pt. II Ch XXV ‘Of Counsel’ in: Hobbes, 173.
98 Leviathan, Pt. II Ch xxx “Of the Office of the Sovereign Representative” in: Hobbes and Tuck, 232.
99 ‘Of Envy’ in The Works of Francis Bacon, 103–9.
100 An object of Bacon’s envy was Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury and Bacon’s cousin. Bacon had to wait for 25–30 years at court before being advanced: In 1579 he returned to England from France; in 1581 he became a member of parliament; he was knighted in 1603; and he became solicitor general in 1606/7, when he started earning a living. All the while, Bacon lived perpetually in debt and opposed to the Cecils, the dominant family at Court.
101 Jardine and Stewart, Hostage to Fortune, 399; 488. Jardine quotes a letter written to Bacon from a friend in the Scottish court which ‘hinted at an envious faction at work against him’. In another quoted letter, Bacon described ‘the almanack’ of one of his years at court as ‘envy’.
102 ‘Of Cunning’ in The Works of Francis Bacon, 153–8.
103 Cf. Fish, Self-Consuming Artifacts, 127–34. Fish’s analysis of ‘Of Cunning’ similarly notices Bacon’s peculiar decision to focus on cunning in an essay that initially proclaims the wise man as better. Fish, however, interprets Bacon’s textual ambiguity as genuine ambivalence between wisdom and cunning, or even as preference for cunning over wisdom. This conclusion seems incorrect. Bacon is fairly direct in his belief that cunning is only beneficial insofar as it adds to a knowledge of civil business.
104 Cf. Luciani, “Bacon and Machiavelli”. Luciani provides a helpful list of many Bacon scholars who have traced his thought to his studies of Machiavelli.
105 ‘Of Cunning’ in The Works of Francis Bacon, 153–8. Emphasis mine.
106 While the connection between Machiavelli and Bacon is generally asserted in scholarship on Bacon’s political thought, this paper is not making the claim that Bacon and Machiavelli had identical concepts of ‘the reason of state’, nor does this paper make any claims about Bacon’s imperial views connected to his reason of state, which is another topic altogether. For an in-depth discussion on Bacon’s imperialism and comparison with Machiavelli, see Peltonen, “Politics and Science”.
107 Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, 170. Emphasis mine.
108 ‘Of Vicissitude of Things’ in The Works of Francis Bacon, 273–80. Italics original to Bacon. Bacon considers Solomon the author of Ecclesiastes, though the authorship of this book is considered unknown.