THE ESSAYS OR COUNSELS CIVIL AND MORAL OF FRANCIS BACON EDITED BY FRED ALLISON HOWE, LL.B., PH.D. HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, STATE NORMAL D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO PREFACE THIS volume aims to supply the student with a clear, accurate text of Bacon's Essays, together with such assistance in the way of references and notes as is requisite to their appreciation. Rather more than the usual amount of help appears necessary in the case of a writer remote enough to use English that sounds somewhat foreign to ears unaccustomed to any but the modern idiom; whose copiousness of allusion and illustration is often a hindrance rather than an aid to clearness, since time has swept aside many of the beliefs from which such illustrations took their point; and whose style, in the Essays, is compressed to sententiousness, if not often to obscurity. Whenever possible the author has been allowed to explain himself, one passage being cited to illuminate another; and the student's interpretation has been put upon a practical basis of self-help through references to authority, or through inductive questions, direct information being supplied only when that appeared to be the necessary or the most economical method. The notes have been written with the aim to stimulate and direct the student's thinking and research rather than to take the place of such effort. Here and there a direct connection is made in the notes between some view or theory of life and conduct expressed in the text and ideas now current. To use the frequent occasions which the Essays offer for such connection, putting the questions there discussed to the test of actual experience, is to make use of the chief means of interest in the study. Written exercises in the interpretation of the Essays will give useful opportunities for comparative study of subject-matter and occasion for noting all essential characteristics of style. The test of success in the study of the Essays is, whether or not, as a consequence, the student's own thinking is invigorated and vitalized. The Glossary sums up the chief verbal difficulties in one list for convenient examination and cross-reference. The introductory matter is intended to give a point of view and to furnish the broad outlines of the social and historical background, to be filled in by supplementary reading from such books as are named in the reference list. PAGE *For courses having a limited time and as an aid to those who prefer a more |