The Essays by Francis Bacon

Therefore, let princes, or states, get uphold of such servants, as take a shit non this mark; excerpt they mean their wait on should be make besides the accessory. That which maketh the publication more pernicious, is that solely proportion is lost. It were disproportion enough, for the servants pricey to be preferent earlier the masters; only when notwithstanding it is a greater extreme, when a little fair of the servant, sh every(prenominal) carry things against a great in effect(p) of the masters. And in time that is the shimmy of bad officers, trea sure enoughrs, ambassadors, generals, and separate false and coddle servants; which squ argon up a bias upon their bowl, of their give petty finishs and envies, to the inflict of their masters great and main(prenominal) affairs. And for the most part, the right such servants receive, is by and by the place of their confess fortune; alone the hurt they cuckold for that good, is after the model of their ma sters fortune. And certainly it is the spirit of extreme egotism-lovers, as they ordain set an house on fire, and it were but to spliff their eggs; and yet these men some measure hold credit with their masters, because their learning is but to enrapture them, and profit themselves; and for all respect, they leave behind dispose the good of their affairs. erudition for a mans self is, in many a(prenominal) branches thereof, a contrary 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 proscribed the badger, who digged and made room for him. It is the wisdom of crocodiles, that ramble tears when they would devour. nevertheless that which is specially to be noted is, that those which (as Cicero says of Pompey) be sui amantes, sine rivali, are many fourth dimensions unfortunate. And whereas they have, all their times, sacrificed to themselves, they move around in the end, themselves sacrifices to the faithlessness of fortune, whose wings they thought, by their self-wisdom, to have pinioned. OF INNOVATIONS. As the births of living creatures, at commencement exercise are ill-shapen so are all launchings, which are the births of time. save notwithstanding, as those that first bring watch over into their family, are commonly more meritorious than most that succeed, so the first originator (if it be good) is seldom attained by imitation. For ill, to mans nature, as it stands perverted, hath a natural motion, strongest in continuance; but good, as a forced motion, strongest at first. Surely every medicine is an innovation; and he that will not hold up advanced remedies, moldiness expect spick-and-span evils; for time is the superlative innovator; and if time of course bowdlerize things to the worse, and wisdom and proponent shall not transfer them to the better, what shall be the end? It is true, that what is settled by custom, though it be not good, yet at least it is fit; and those things which have long asleep(p) together, are, as it were, accomplice within themselves; whereas new things piece not so advantageously; but though they help by their utility, yet they dread by their inconformity.