as children fear to go into the dark; and as that natural
fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other."

Lord Bacon has an essay on Atheism, which is significantly followed by
another on Superstition. The latter is seldom referred to by religious
apologists, but we shall deal with it first.

"In all superstition," he says, "wise men follow fools." This is a bold,
significant utterance. Fools are always in the majority, wise men are
few, and they are obliged to bow to the power of the multitude. Kings
respect, and priests organise, the popular folly; and the wise men have
to sit aloft and nod to each other across the centuries. There is a
freemasonry amongst them, and they have their shibboleths and dark
sayings, to protect them against priests and mobs.

Perhaps the story of Balaam is a subtle anticipation of Lord Bacon's
dictum. It was the ass that first saw the angel. Baalam only saw it
afterwards, when his wits were disordered by the wonder of a talking
donkey. Thus the prophet followed the ass, as wise men follow fools.

Superstition is worse than Atheism, in Lord Bacon's judgment; the one
is unbelief, he says, but the other is contumely; and "it were better
to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy
of him." He approves the saying of Plutarch, that he "had rather a great
deal men should say there was no such man as Plutarch, than that they
should say there was one Plutarch that would eat his children as soon as
they were born"--which, on the part of Lord Bacon, looks like a thrust
at the doctrine of original sin and infant damnation.

With his keen eye for "the good of man's estate," Lord Bacon remarks
of superstition, that "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 Atheism did
never perturb states; for it makes men wary of themselves, as looking
no farther, 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."

By "civil times" Lord Bacon means settled, quiet, orderly, progressive
times-