Francis Bacon - The Essays 1601
OF SUPERSTITION
It were better to
have no opinion of God at all,
than such an opinion,
as is unworthy of him.
For the one is unbelief,
the other is contumely;
and certainly superstition is
the reproach of the Deity.
Plutarch saith well to that purpose: Surely (saith he)
I had rather a great deal, men should say,
there was no sitch man at all, as Plutarch,
than that they should say,
that there was one Plutarch,
that would eat his
children as soon as they were born;
as the poets speak of Saturn.
And as the contumely
is greater towards God,
so the danger is greater towards men.
Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws,
to reputation all which
may be guides to
an outward moral virtue,
though religion were not;
but superstition dismounts all these,
and erecteth an absolute monarchy,
in the minds of men.
Therefore theism did never perturb states;
for it makes men wary of themselves,
as looking no further:
and we see the
times inclined to atheism (as
the time of Augustus Caesar) were civil times.
But superstition hath been
the confusion of many states,
and bringeth in a new primum mobile,
that ravisheth all the spheres of government.
The master of superstition, is the people;
and in all superstition,
wise men follow fools;
and arguments are fitted to practice,
in a reversed order.
It was gravely said
by some of the
prelates in the Council of Trent,
where the doctrine of
the Schoolmen bare great sway,
that the Schoolmen were like astronomers,
which did feign eccentrics and epicycles,
and such engines of orbs,
to save the phenomena;
though they knew there
were no such things;
and in like manner,
that the Schoolmen had
framed a number of
subtle and intricate axioms, and theorems,
to save the practice of the church.
The causes of superstition are:
pleasing and sensual rites and ceremonies;
excess of outward and pharisaical holiness;
overgreat reverence of traditions,
which cannot but load the church;
the stratagems of prelates,
for their own ambition and lucre;
the favoring too much of good intentions,
which openeth the gate
to conceits and novelties;
the taking an aim at divine matters, by human,
which cannot but breed mixture of imaginations: and, lastly, barbarous times,
especially joined with calamities and disasters. Superstition, without a veil,
is a deformed thing; for,
as it addeth deformity to an ape,
to be so like a man,
so the similitude of superstition to religion,
makes it the more deformed.
And as wholesome meat
corrupteth to little worms,
so good forms and orders corrupt,
into a number of petty observances.
There is a superstition in avoiding superstition,
when men think to do best,
if they go furthest from the superstition, formerly received;
therefore care would be had that (as
it fareth in the
good be not taken
away with the bad;
which commonly is done,
when the people is the reformer.
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