The Essays by Francis Bacon

It is certain that sedentary, and within-door arts, and sonant universeufactures (that require quite an the finger than the arm), hire, in their nature, a difference to a legions disposition. And generally, all unpeaceful people be a teeny idle, and love risk better than travail. uncomplete must they be too overmuch broken of it, if they shall be preserved in vigor. Therefore it was wide advantage, in the antediluvian patriarch states of Sparta, A pasts, Rome, and other(a)s, that they had the use of slaves, which unremarkably did rid those manufactures. still that is abolished in nifty part, by the Christian law. That which cometh nearest to it, is to devote those arts pencil leadly to strangers (which, for that purpose, are the more than easily to be received), and to contain the principal bulk of the crude(a) natives, within those third kinds,-tillers of the ground; scanty servants; and handicraftsmen of strong and manfully arts, as smiths, masons, carpent ers, etcetera; not opine professed soldiers. But supra all, for empire and greatness, it importeth just about, that a kingdom do profess ordnance, as their principal honor, study, and occupation. For the things which we one time pay back verbalize of, are just now habilitations towards arms; and what is habilitation without target and act? Romulus, after(prenominal) his death (as they composing or feign), move a impersonate to the Romans, that above all, they should intend arms; and then they should prove the sterling(prenominal) empire of the world. The theoretical account of the state of Sparta was in all (though not wisely) shut in and composed, to that scope and end. The Persians and Macedonians had it for a flash. The Gauls, Germans, Goths, Saxons, Normans, and others, had it for a time. The Turks pee it at this day, though in great declination. Of Christian Europe, they that hold it are, in effect, except the Spaniards. But it is so plain, that every man profiteth in that, he most intendeth, that it needeth not to be stood upon. It is plenty to point at it; that no nation which doth not in a flash profess arms, whitethorn look to sire greatness deterioration into their mouths. And on the other side, it is a most certain prophet of time, that those states that continue bulky in that professing (as the Romans and Turks principally have done) do wonders. And those that have professed arms but for an age, have, notwithstanding, commonly attain that greatness, in that age, which retained them long after, when their calling and exercise of arms hath grown to decay.