Of Friendship Essay

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Francis Bacon's Of Friendship Analysis As a pragmatic and as an empirical thinker Bacon followed two fundamental Renaissance principles—Sepantia or search for knowledge and Eloquent, 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 to support or explain his arguments perhaps because this essay was occasioned by the request of his friend Toby Matthew. Bacon begins the essay by invoking the classical authorities 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
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