"Pruning by study": Self-cultivation in Bacon's Essays

Papers on Language and Literature, Fall 1995 by Miller, John J

The aim in "Of Travel" is efficiency. Though recommending exposure to a variety of objects of study, it encourages a specific, narrow focus on points of practical, contemporary interest, especially commercial and governmental institutions. Thus the "havens and harbors" of the Continent are as worthy of study as its "antiquities and ruins." The structure of the essay itself, centered on a lengthy list of such "things to be seen and observed," suggests an almost comical haste. The whirlwind pace of this catalog justifies the recommendation which precedes it, that a diary "be brought in use." The aim of the tour is to "have a young man to put his travel into a little room, and in short time to gather much," to "abridge his travel with much profit." Important above all, therefore, is to keep moving:

Let him keep also a diary. Let him not stay long in one city or town; more or less as the place deserveth, but not long; nay, when he stayeth in one city or town, let him change his lodging from one end and part of the town to another...(VI: 418)

In his rush, Bacon seems to forget that he has already packed his diary several sentences earlier.

In seeking out guides--like the diary, another efficient mediation between the student and the objects of his studies--Bacon recommends employing ambassadorial staff:

As for the acquaintance which is to be sought in travel; that which is most of all profitable is acquaintance with the secretaries and employed men of ambassadors: for so in travelling in one country he shall suck the experience of many. (VI: 418)

Such vampirism (deriving from the conventional figure of the student as a bee who sups at many flowers) complements the premium placed on efficiency in "Of Studies." The influx of information is susceptible to and ought to be controlled by the same mechanisms of conservation which are elsewhere recommended to regulate the student's future output. The xenophobic impulse which seems to want to hurry the student through this necessary step in his education arises in part from a related fear of allowing the self to be absorbed into the massive selflessness represented by the detailed variety of the world outside both one's country and oneself.

III

The essays examined so far represent supporting arches buttressing the central structure of (he project of the Essays, a structure which, not unlike the scientific project, is composed of discrete units of knowledge. The primary difference between the two projects is that science is allowed the luxury of reaching its Fulfillment in properly developed axioms, unhurried by any pressure to produce useful results on a schedule. Science can wait for its results. The project of the essays, however, aims at the production of a man who can participate in the world. While some of the essays, including those already discussed, are primarily concerned with guiding such a man to the world, the majority aim at guiding him through it. The same model of the self, expressed in similar metaphors, informs the majority of these essays on the "science of negotiation." "Of Counsel" and "Of Friendship" are a useful pair by which to illustrate the persistence and use of this underlying model of the self, because both concern the relationship of the self to other selves.