The real wisdom here isn't simply that greed is bad—it's that money possesses a peculiar gravity, gradually shifting from tool to tyrant through small, reasonable decisions. Bacon understood what we see in real life: the executive who takes a higher-paying job that destroys his marriage doesn't wake up as a villain; he makes one sensible choice, then another, until suddenly he's serving quarterly returns instead of his own values. What makes this formulation brilliant is the word *servant*—it acknowledges money's genuine utility and necessity, avoiding the false piety of those who pretend wealth doesn't matter. The warning isn't against having money, but against the almost invisible moment when priorities invert.