Shakespeare. It is hopeless to deduce any precise system of philosophy
from Shakespeare's plays. Literally, philosophy means nothing more
recondite than love of wisdom. Technically, it means scientifically
restrained speculation about the causes of human thought and conduct;
it embraces the sciences of logic, of ethics, of politics, of
psychology, of metaphysics. Shakespeare's training and temper unfitted
him to make any professed contribution to any of these topics.

Ignorant persons argue on hazy grounds that the great avowed
philosopher of Shakespeare's day, Francis Bacon, wrote Shakespeare's
plays. There is no need to confute the theory, which confutes itself.
But, if a confutation were needed, it lies on the surface in the
conflicting attitudes which Shakespeare and Bacon assume towards
philosophy. There is no mistaking Bacon's attitude. The supreme aim of
his writings was to establish the practical value, the majestic
importance, of philosophy in its strict sense of speculative science.
He sought to widen its scope, and to multiply the ranks of its
students.

Bacon's method is formally philosophic in texture. He carefully
scrutinises, illustrates, seeks to justify each statement before
proceeding to a conclusion. Every essay, every treatise of Bacon,
conveys the impression not merely of weighty, pregnant eloquence, but
of the argumentative and philosophic temper. Bacon's process of
thinking is conscious: it is visible behind the words. The argument
progresses with a cumulative force. It draws sustenance from the
recorded opinions of others. The points usually owe consistency and
firmness to quotations from old authors--Greek and Latin authors,
especially Plato and Plutarch, Lucretius and Seneca. To Bacon, as to
all professed students of the subject, philosophy first revealed
itself in the pages of the Greek writers, Plato and Aristotle, the
founders for modern Europe of the speculative sciences of human
thought and conduct. Greatly as Bacon modified the Greek system of
philosophy, he began his philosophic career under the influence of
Aristotle, and, despite his destructive criticism of his master, he
never wholly divested himself of the methods of exposition to which
the Greek philosopher's teaching introduced him.

In their attitudes to philosophy, Shakespeare and Bacon are as the
poles asunder. Shakespeare practically ignores the existence of
philosophy as a formal science. He betrays no knowledge of its Gr