Question

Read the passage from Of the Wisdom of the Ancients.

Let us now consider his [Cupid’s] attributes. He is described with great elegance as a little child, and a child for ever; for things compounded are larger and are affected by age; whereas the primary seeds of things, or atoms, are minute and remain in perpetual infancy.

Most truly also is he represented as naked: for all compounds (to one that considers them rightly) are masked and clothed; and there is nothing properly naked, except the primary particles of things.

Bacon lists Cupid’s attributes in order to

show that Cupid is real.
prove that Cupid is a child.
disprove the existence of the atom.
compare them to the features of the atom.

Answer 1

compare them to the features of the atom.

Bacon is allegorically linking Cupid’s smallness and nakedness to the “primary seeds of things” (atoms): he’s using Cupid’s attributes to illustrate properties of atoms/primary particles.