Bacon's essays: Of simulation and dissimulation

Bacon isnt talking about computer modeling in this essay. Hes talking about deceit: when
its necessary and when it should be avoided. The word simulation is a fine example of
semantic drift. In Bacons day, it only meant pretense, behaving falsely. Nowadays that
meaning is hard to resurrect, its been so overgrown by the modeling sense. Dissimulation
isnt even a word for us, but for him it meant pretty much the same as simulation, but with a
stronger connotation of ill intent. Sir Richard Steele distinguished them neatly: Simulation is
a Pretence of what is not, and Dissimulation a Concealment of what is. (OED.) (Steele
would have known Bacons essays by heart.)

Bacon advocates circumspection, rather than simulation, for those who can swing it. He
seems to think such persons are few. Maybe they are; we do have a tendency to be eager to
share what we know. Thats why there are Share buttons all over everything!

This essay gets off to a rocky start, for my taste. I dont know my Romans as well as Bacon
did, so stories about Livia, Augustus, and Tiberius go right over my head. (When I hear the
name Tiberius, I think of a starship captain, not a Roman emperor.)

Bacon writes: 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 showed 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 to
that judgment, then it is left to him generally, to be close, and a dissembler.

In other words, if youre clever enough to know what to tell whom and when and not say any
more than that to anyone, then lying will just get in your way. Least said, soonest mended. If
you cant be that discriminating, hold your tongue. Or, Bacon seems to advise, learn to lie. He
means be evasive more than tell deliberate falsehoods.

Either way, what an annoying person he must have been to talk to sometimes! I make
him nicer than this in my stories. One of these days well end up at Court, where he can
dissemble with the rest of them.

Three degrees of concealment

He gives us the classic rhetorical division of the subject into three parts. There be three
degrees of this hiding and veiling of a mans 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.

Well, thats the opposite of Richard Steeles definitions. Ay, me.

Bacon values reservation most highly. A man should not let his thoughts and feelings slop
around out there where everyone can grab hold of them. Besides (to say truth) nakedness is
uncomely, as well in mind as body; and it addeth no small reverence, to mens 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. Aint that the truth!

He also points out that people who dont tell secrets are often told them by others, so you
learn more by holding your tongue. Sneaky.

The second degree, dissimulation, can be necessary, if youre going to be discreet. You cant
just stand there saying nothing. This part is rather vivid; he must be writing from experience.
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.

The third degree, simulation, is a vice, rising either of a natural falseness or fearfulness, or
of a mind that hath some main faults. Here hes talking about outright deception, habitual
lying. We say such people are full of bull and dont respect them or trust them, although they
can be entertaining.

The upside of deceit

Bacon finds three advantages to simulation and dissimulation. First, by obscuring your
intentions, you can surprise your opponents.

Second, to reserve to a mans self a fair retreat. If you dont advertise your goal or target,
you wont be obliged to admit to failure if you dont make it. (This sounds like a good
strategy for dieting or setting a publication schedule)

The third is, the better to discover the mind of another. This is a lovely strategy which I
find near impossible for my own self, but it really does work. You say nothing, or little
nothings like oh? and huh. Your interlocutor, frustrated by your lack of response, gives
you more and more information. What, you think the butler did it? Why, because hes named
in the will?

Bacon isnt irresponsible enough to leave us with the idea that lying is a good thing, so he
ends with three disadvantages. First, both evasiveness and falsehoods make you look weak
and fearful. Second, such behavior puzzleth and perplexeth people, so they dont want to
work with you. Third, 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.

Sound advice, in any age.