As a
pragmatic and as an empirical thinker Bacon followed two fundamental
Renaissance principles—Sepantia or search for knowledge and
Eloquentia,
the art of rhetoric. This explains, to some extent, the impassioned
presentation of his ideas and views and the aphoristic style of his writing.
But the essay Of Friendship is stylistically somewhat different in that it
contains passionate and flattering statements along with profuse analogies and
examples in support of his arguments perhaps because this essay was occasioned
by the request of his friend Toby Matthew.
Bacon begins
the essay by invoking the classical authority of Aristotle on basic human
nature. First, he refers to Aristotle’s view in Politics: Whosoever is
delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god. According to
Aristotle, a man by nature and behaviour may be degraded to such an extent that
he may be called unfit for society. Again, he may be so self-sufficient that he
may not need society. In the first case, he resembles a wild beast and in
the second, he resembles gods. Here it should be pointed out that Bacon is not
ruling out the value of solitude; in fact, he is reserving solitude for higher
kind of life, which is possible for a few great men like Epimenides, Numa,
Empedocles, Apollonius and some Christian saints. Here too Bacon is following
Aristotelian view on solitude as expressed in Ethics, where Aristotle prefers a
contemplative life to an active life:
“It is the
highest kind of life, it can be enjoyed uninterruptedly for the greatest length
of time...”
Bacon’s
logic is that those who live in society should enjoy the bliss of friendship
for more than one reason. First of all, friendship is necessary for maintaining
good mental health by controlling and regulating the passions of the mind. In
other words, Bacon here speaks of the therapeutic use of friendship though
which one can lighten the heart by revealing the pent-up feelings and emotions:
sorrows, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, advice and the like.
Then in
order to justify the value of friendship, Bacon points out the practice of
friendship on the highest social level. He informs us that the kings and
princes, in order to make friends, would raise some persons who would be fit
for friendship. Then Bacon tries to glorify friendship by translating the Roman
term for friendship, Participes curarum, which means
‘sharers of their cares’. He gives instances of raising of men as friends from
the Roman history: Sylla and Pompey the Great, Julius Caesar and Antonius,
Augustus and Agrippa, Tiberius Caesar and Sejanus, Septimius Severus and Plautianus.
Bacon also refers to what Comineus wrote of Duke Charles the Hardy’s
deterioration of his mental faculty just because of his reserve and loneliness
and extends his judgement to the case of Comineus’ second master, Louis XI. The
point which Bacon strongly wants to assert is that friendship functions for a
man in a double yet paradoxically contrary manner: “...it redoubleth joys, and
cutteth griefs in halfs”.
The second
fruit of friendship, according to Bacon, is beneficial for the clarity of understanding.
If a man has got a faithful friend, he can be consulted to clarify the
confusions of the mind. He calls the counsel of a friend, citing Heraclitus, “drier
and purer” than that a man
gives himself out of self -love, which clouds his judgement. Bacon then counsel
of this sort into two kinds: “the one concerning manners and the other
concerning business.” A friend’s constructive criticism of the other
friend’s behaviour helps him more than a book of morality. In the matter of
conducting practical business, Bacon thinks, a true friend’s advice can also be
helpful in undertaking a venture or averting a danger.
Finally,
Bacon speaks of the last fruit of friendship, which is manifold in the sense
that there are so many things in life, which can be fulfilled only with the
help of a friend. In fact, at a rare moment Bacon gets emotional and quotes
classical maxim that “a friend is another self”. His point is that a man may
have many a desire, which may not be realised in his life-time, but if he has
got a true friend, his unfulfilled desire will be taken care of by his friend.
Not only this, a friend, unlike the near and dear ones and enemies, can talk to
him on equal terms whenever situation demands. Keeping all these things, Bacon
concludes that if a man does not have a friend, he may well leave this world.
That is to say, he is not fit for the human society to live in.
Literature liberates and leavens our latent learning with limpid lumina. So myself a lustful literary lacky.
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