Of Simulation and Dissimulation
by
Francis Bacon
(Essay)
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 politicians that are
the great dissemblers.
Tacitus
saith, "Livia sorted well with the arts of her husband, and dissimulation
of her son; attributing arts or policy to Augustus, and dissimulation to
Tiberius:" and again, when Mucianus encourageth Vespasian to take arms
against Vitellius, he saith, "We rise not against the piercing judgment of
Augustus, nor the extreme caution or closeness of Tiberius:" 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 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 attain to that judgment, then it is left to him generally
to he 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; the second dissimulation
in the negative, when a man lets fall signs and arguments, that he is not that
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
a 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. 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 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 a 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 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 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 shew 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 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,) 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
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: the third is, the better to
discover the mind of another; for to him that opens himself men will hardly
show themselves averse; but will fain 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 truth;" 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 show of
fearfulness, which, in any business doth spoil the feathers of round flying up
to the mark; the second, that it puzzleth and perplexeth the conceits 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 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.
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