The Essays of Francis Bacon/VI Of Simulation and Dissimulation

by Francis Bacon

VI. Of Simulation^[1] and Dissimulation.^[2]

Dissimulation is but a faint kind of policy or wisdom; for it asketh a strong wit and a strong heart to know when to tell truth, and to do it. Therefore it is the weaker sort of politics that are the great dissemblers.

Tacitus saith, Livia sorted well with the arts of her husband and dissimulation of her son;^[3] attributing arts or policy to Augustus, and dissimulation to Tiberius. And again, when Mucianus encourageth Vespasian to take arms against Vitellius,^[4] he saith, We rise not against the piercing judgment of Augustus, nor the extreme caution or closeness of Tiberius.^[5] These properties, of arts or policy and dissimulation or closeness, are indeed habits and faculties several, and to be distinguished. For if a man have that penetration of judgment as^[6] he can discern what things are to be laid open, and what to be secreted, and what to be shewed at half lights, and to whom and when, (which indeed are arts of state and arts of life, as Tacitus well calleth them,) to him a habit of dissimulation is a hinderance and a poorness. But if a man cannot obtain^[7] to that judgment, then it is left to him generally to be close, and a dissembler. For where a man cannot choose or vary in particulars, there it is good to take the safest and wariest way in general; like the going softly, by one that cannot well see. Certainly the ablest men that ever were have had all an openness and frankness of dealing; and a name of certainty and veracity; but then they were like horses well managed; for they could tell passing well when to stop or turn; and at such times when they thought the case indeed required dissimulation, if then they used it, it came to pass that the former opinion spread abroad of their good faith and clearness of dealing made them almost invisible.

There be three degrees of this hiding and veiling of a man's self. The first, Closeness, Reservation, and Secrecy; when a man leaveth himself without observation, or without hold to be taken, what he is.^[8] The second, Dissimulation, in the negative; when a man lets fall signs and arguments, that he is not that^[9] he is. And the third, Simulation, in the affirmative; when a man industriously and expressly feigns and pretends to be that he is not.

For the first of these, Secrecy; it is indeed the virtue of a confessor. And assuredly the secret man heareth many confessions. For who will open himself to a blab or babbler? But if a man be thought secret, it inviteth discovery; as the more close air sucketh in the more open; and as in confession the revealing is not for worldly use, but for the ease of a man's heart, so secret men come to the knowledge of many things in that kind; while men rather discharge their minds than impart their minds. In few words, mysteries are due to secrecy.^[10] Besides (to say truth) nakedness is uncomely, as well in mind as body; and it addeth no small reverence to men's manners and actions, if they be not altogether open. As for talkers and futile^[11] persons, they are commonly vain and credulous withal. For he that talketh what he knoweth, will also talk what he knoweth not. Therefore set it down, that an habit of secrecy is both politic and moral. And in this part it is good that a man's face give his tongue leave to speak. For the discovery of a man's self by the tracts^[12] of his countenance is a great weakness and betraying; by how much it is many times more marked and believed than a man's words.

For the second, which is Dissimulation; it followeth many times upon secrecy by a necessity; so that he that will be secret must be a dissembler in some degree. For men are too cunning to suffer a man to keep an indifferent^[13] carriage between both, and to be secret, without swaying the balance on either side. They will so beset a man with questions, and draw him on, and pick it out of him, that, without an absurd silence, he must show an inclination one way; or if he do not, they will gather as much by his silence as by his speech. As for equivocations, or oraculous^[14] speeches, they cannot hold out long. So that no man can be secret, except he give himself a little scope of dissimulation; which is, as it were, but the skirts or train of secrecy.

But for the third degree, which is Simulation and false profession; that I hold more culpable, and less politic; except it be in great and rare matters. And therefore a general custom of simulation (which is this last degree) is a vice, rising either of a natural falseness or fearfulness, or of a mind that hath some main faults, which because a man must needs disguise, it maketh him practise simulation in other things, lest his hand should be out of use.

The great advantages of simulation and dissimulation are three. First, to lay asleep opposition, and to surprise. For where a man's intentions are published, it is an alarum to call up all that are against them. The second is, to reserve to a man's self a fair retreat. For if a man engage himself by a manifest declaration, he must go through or take a fall.^[15] The third is, the better to discover the mind of another. For to him that opens himself men will hardly shew themselves adverse; but will (fair)^[16] let him go on, and turn their freedom of speech to freedom of thought. And therefore it is a good shrewd proverb of the Spaniard, Tell a lie and find a troth.^[17] As if there were no way of discovery but by simulation. There be also three disadvantages, to set it even. The first, that simulation and dissimulation commonly carry with them a shew of fearfulness, which in any business doth spoil the feathers of round^[18] flying up to the mark. The second, that it puzzleth and perplexeth the conceits^[19] of many, that perhaps would otherwise co-operate with him; and makes a man walk almost alone to his own ends. The third and greatest, is, that it depriveth a man of one of the most principal instruments for action; which is trust and belief. The best composition and temperature^[20] is to have openness in fame and opinion; secrecy in habit; dissimulation in seasonable use; and a power to feign, if there be no remedy.

1. Simulation. The act of simulating or feigning; pretense, usually for the purpose of deceiving.
2. Dissimulation. Deceit, hypocrisy.
3. Mater impotens, uxor facilis et cum artibus mariti, simulatione filii bene composita, as a mother imperious, as a wife compliant and well matched with the subtlety of her husband and the dissimulation of her son. P. Cornelii Taciti Annalium Liber V. Fragmentum. Caput 1. Cf. Advancement of Learning. II. xxiii. 36.
4. Aulus Vitellius, 15–69 A.D., Roman emperor immediately before Vespasian.
5. Non adversus divi Augusti acerrimam mentem, nec adversus cautissimam Tiberii senectutem, ne contra Gai quidem aut Claudii vel Neronis fundatam longo imperio domum exsurgimus. Cornelii Taciti Historiarum Liber II. Caput 76.
6. As. That.
7. Obtain. To attain to; to reach; to gain; intransitive, with 'to' or 'unto.'
8. Before Milton set out on his Italian journey, he received a letter of advice from Sir Henry Wotton, then Provost of Eton. Wotton said that in Siena he had been "tabled in the house of one Alberto Scipioni, an old Roman courtier in dangerous times . . . . and at my departure toward Rome (which had been the centre of his experience) I had won his confidence enough to beg his advice how I might carry myself there without offence of others or of mine own conscience. 'Signor Arrigo mio,' says he, 'I pensieri stretti ed il viso sciolto' [honest thoughts and an open countenance] will go safely over the whole world.'"
9. That. What.
10. "A proper secrecy is the only mystery of able men: mystery the only secrecy of weak and cunning ones." Maxims: Enclosed in Letter of January 15, 1753. The Letters of Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, with the Characters. Edited with Introduction, Notes, and Index, by John Bradshaw. II. 572.
11. Futile. Talkative.
12. Tract. Trait, lineament, feature.
13. Indifferent. Impartial, neutral.
14. Oraculous. Oracular.
15. Fall. A bout at wrestling; to 'take a fall' is to be tripped, to be thrown.
16. The Latin translation renders fair by potius, rather; the adverb fairly preserves the sense in the phrase fairly well = rather well.
17. This Spanish proverb will be found in the Advancement of Learning, II. xxiii. 18: "Di mentira, y sacaras verdad."
18. Round. Direct.
19. Conceit. Conception, idea, thought, notion.
    

    "Is it not monstrous, that this player here,
    But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
    Could force his soul so to his own conceit,
    That from her working all his visage wann'd;
    Tears in his eyes, distraction in 's aspect,
    A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
    With forms to his conceit?"
    

    Shakspere. Hamlet. ii. 2.
20. Temperature. Temperament, constitution. Bacon uses the word 'temperature,' as also 'temper,' in the essay Of Empire, in the old physiological sense. A person's 'temperature' or 'temperament' was his 'mixture,' or, to put the idea in another way, his 'complexion' was his 'combination,' that is, of the four liquids or humors.