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Francis Bacon

 
Scientist: Francis Bacon
 
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Francis Bacon
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[b. London, January 22, 1561, d. London, April 9, 1626]

Bacon's main influence on science was his emphasis on developing general laws that apply to observations, laws formed by thoughtfully collecting as many instances as possible and abstracting the laws in a process called induction. As a scientist himself, Bacon was nearly correct in explaining heat, although he reversed cause and effect by suggesting that the expansion of heated materials causes movements of their particles.


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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Albans
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(born Jan. 22, 1561, London, Eng. — died April 9, 1626, London) British statesman and philosopher, father of modern scientific method. He studied at Cambridge and at Gray's Inn. A supporter of the Earl of Essex, Bacon turned against him when Essex was tried for treason. Under James I he rose steadily, becoming successively solicitor general (1607), attorney general (1613), and lord chancellor (1618). Convicted of accepting bribes from those being tried in his court, he was briefly imprisoned and permanently lost his public offices; he died deeply in debt. He attempted to put natural science on a firm empirical foundation in the Novum Organum (1620), which sets forth his scientific method. His elaborate classification of the sciences inspired the 18th-century French Encyclopedists (see Encyclopédie), and his empiricism inspired 19th-century British philosophers of science. His other works include The Advancement of Learning (1605), History of Henry VII (1622), and several important legal and constitutional works.

For more information on Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Albans, visit Britannica.com.

 
British History: Francis Bacon
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Bacon, Francis, 1st Baron Verulam, 1st Viscount St Albans (1561-1626). Lawyer, philosopher, and essayist. The son of a prominent lawyer, Bacon went to Trinity College, Cambridge, and then to the Inns of Court. In 1584 he became an MP. On the accession of James I, Bacon achieved rapid promotion, prosecuting Ralegh, raised to the peerage, and ending up as lord chancellor. But in 1621 he was convicted of taking bribes, and though soon pardoned, he had to give up public life.

His witty and pithy Essays were first published in 1597, and are splendid examples of English prose; in 1605 he brought out his Advancement of Learning. In this first exercise in writing about science, he was highly critical of the humanistic education he had received at Cambridge. In 1620 he published his Novum organum, presenting his philosophy of science in the form of aphorisms. In retirement, he collected and published information of a miscellaneous kind, in what was to be the Great Instauration. He died a martyr to science, from a chill caught trying to preserve a chicken by stuffing it with snow. After his death, the fragmentary New Atlantis was published in 1627: with its vision of an island governed by an Academy of Sciences. This is the most accessible and exciting of his writings on science. Bacon's science was organized common sense; and his vision of utility was gripping.

 
Philosophy Dictionary: Francis Bacon
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Bacon, Francis (1561-1626) English statesman and philosopher. As a philosopher of science Bacon is the first notable example of the empiricist tendency of English thought, but perhaps more importantly the prophet and protector of the dawning scientific revolution. He was a precocious child born into a leading family, and rapidly rose in the law, although not without questionable incident, as when at the behest of Elizabeth I he prosecuted the Earl of Essex, one of his earliest and principal patrons. His legal philosophy was one of absolute duty to the sovereign, which cannot have hindered his rise to the position of Lord Chancellor. In 1620, however, he was disgraced for bribery and spent his remaining years in seclusion. His collected works run to fourteen volumes, and include Essays (1597), The Advancement of Learning (1605), the Novum Organon (1620), and the New Atlantis (published posthumously, 1660).

Bacon was the first writer to try to delineate the proper methods of successful science, to enable science to become a craft or industry producing benefits for humanity rather than the haphazard pursuit of occasional eccentrics. Although the ‘Baconian method’ is sometimes identified with simple induction by enumeration (the generalizing from instances of phenomena to experimental laws), in fact Bacon provided a sophisticated taxonomy of scientific methods, in most respects anticipating such later results as Mill's methods, and certainly including an understanding that the search for laws was an imaginative and intellectual rather than a mechanical empirical exercise. His work included a running battle against the false approaches of metaphysics, and against superstition (his own attitude to religion certainly included some sceptical elements, and he regarded the whole matter as unimportant compared to science: ‘the research into final causes, like a virgin dedicated to God, is barren and produces nothing’). Diderot said of Bacon that his work amounted to a map of what men had to learn; he has often been described in terms of a prophet standing on the edge of the promised land of scientific knowledge. See also Baconian method, idols of the mind.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Francis Bacon
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Bacon, Francis, 1561–1626, English philosopher, essayist, and statesman, b. London, educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and at Gray's Inn. He was the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, lord keeper to Queen Elizabeth I. Francis Bacon was a member of Parliament in 1584 and his opposition to Elizabeth's tax program retarded his political advancement; only the efforts of the earl of Essex led Elizabeth to accept him as an unofficial member of her Learned Council. At Essex's trial in 1601, Bacon, putting duty to the state above friendship, assumed an active part in the prosecution—a course for which many have condemned him. With the succession of James I, Bacon's fortunes improved. He was knighted in 1603, became attorney general in 1613, lord keeper in 1617, and lord chancellor in 1618; he was created Baron Verulam in 1618 and Viscount St. Albans in 1621. In 1621, accused of accepting bribes as lord chancellor, he pleaded guilty and was fined £40,000, banished from the court, disqualified from holding office, and sentenced to the Tower of London. The banishment, fine, and imprisonment were remitted. Nevertheless, his career as a public servant was ended. He spent the rest of his life writing in retirement.

Bacon belongs to both the worlds of philosophy and literature. He projected a large philosophical work, the Instauratio Magna, but completed only two parts, The Advancement of Learning (1605), later expanded in Latin as De Augmentis Scientiarum (1623), and the Novum Organum (1620). Bacon's contribution to philosophy was his application of the inductive method of modern science. He urged full investigation in all cases, avoiding theories based on insufficient data. However, he has been widely censured for being too mechanical, failing to carry his investigations to their logical ends, and not staying abreast of the scientific knowledge of his own day. In the 19th cent., Macaulay initiated a movement to restore Bacon's prestige as a scientist. Today his contributions are regarded with considerable respect. In The New Atlantis (1627) he describes a scientific utopia that found partial realization with the organization of the Royal Society in 1660. Noted for their style and their striking observations about life, his largely aphoristic Essays (1597–1625) are his best-known writings.

Bibliography

See his works (14 vol., 1857–74, repr. 1968); biography by L. Jardine and A. Stewart (1999); studies by J. Weinberger (1985) and P. Urbach (1987); D. W. Davies and E. S. Wrigley, ed., Concordance to the Essays of Francis Bacon (1973).

 
Dictionary: Ba·con1   (bā'kən) pronunciation, Francis.
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First Baron Verulam and Viscount Saint Albans 1561–1626.

English philosopher, essayist, courtier, jurist, and statesman. His writings include The Advancement of Learning (1605) and the Novum Organum (1620), in which he proposed a theory of scientific knowledge based on observation and experiment that came to be known as the inductive method.


 
History 1450-1789: Francis Bacon
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Bacon, Francis (1561–1626), English natural philosopher, essayist, and statesman. Francis Bacon was the youngest son of Elizabeth I's lord keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon, and his second wife, Anne Cooke. Nephew by marriage to William Cecil, chief councillor to the queen, young Bacon was well positioned to succeed at court. Educated at Cambridge from the age of twelve, Bacon in 1576 began the study of law at Gray's Inn. He interrupted his legal studies that same year to accompany Sir Amias Paulet on a diplomatic mission to France. His father's sudden death recalled him home after three years' residence abroad. Because Sir Nicholas had not made adequate financial provisions for his youngest son, Francis now had to fend for himself financially. He continued his legal studies, becoming a bencher, or senior member, at Gray's in 1586. In 1584 Bacon became a member of Parliament, but thereafter failed to secure the position of solicitor general despite the assistance of his patron, Robert Devereux, earl of Essex. In 1597 he published the first version of his Essays, which he continued to revise and augment in later years. During Elizabeth's reign, Bacon only attained to the post of learned counsel extraordinary and the dubious honor of prosecuting his recalcitrant ex-patron, the earl of Essex, for his treasonous uprising in 1601.

James I's ascension to the English monarchy in 1603 marked a decided turn in Bacon's fortunes. Knighted and appointed to the position of king's counsel, Bacon thereafter became solicitor general (1607), attorney general (1613), member of the privy council (1616), and lord keeper (1617). He married Alice Barnham in 1606. In 1618, he was created Baron Verulam, and became lord chancellor. From 1604 until 1621, when he was impeached for bribery, Bacon advised the king on religious, financial, administrative, parliamentary, judicial, and foreign policy matters, as well as advocating for the political union of England and Scotland. As lord chancellor, he wrote important judicial decisions and sought to reform English law.

During this period, Bacon wrote extensively about ameliorating the human condition through his plans for the advancement of natural philosophy. His Advancement of Learning appeared in 1605, his natural philosophic reinterpretation of Greek mythology, De Sapientia Veterum, in 1609, the Novum Organum in 1620, and the Historia Ventorum in 1622. After his impeachment, Bacon devoted his final years to scientific writing and experiments. He died childless in 1626 from pneumonia contracted after a foray into winter snows with a chicken carcass to conduct an experiment in refrigeration.

Bacon achieved an incisive grasp of the most significant philosophical, social, and political issues of early modernism. In The Advancement of Learning, he took the measure of the intellectual ferment that comprised the contemporary intellectual scene. Aristotelian natural philosophy had lost preeminence and now competed with Neoplatonism, empiricism, alchemy, and ancient atomism, among other philosophical theories, in the effort to explicate the natural world. Bacon articulated the weaknesses of each intellectual movement and reincorporated its strengths into his own philosophical program. For Bacon, natural philosophy should begin with empirical observation and the painstaking compilation of natural histories. Inductive inquiry and the noting of particulars would be followed by controlled experiments (under natural and artificial conditions), which would yield first-level axioms or generalizations. These, in turn, would be corrected and refined by further inductive inquiry and experimentation until higher-level axioms, which were capable of producing useful material effects, were attained. To ensure the validity of inductive and experimental findings, Bacon required the natural philosopher to eschew the four "Idols of the Mind," those ways in which the human mind distorted knowledge through the peculiarities of nature, nurture, language, and ungrounded theorizing.

Bacon tried to ensure that his program was politically practical. He designed his new science to fit within the institutional framework of a Jacobean monarchy purportedly interested in mutually beneficial relations with commercial and artisanal sectors. Bacon imagined the scientific enterprise as a grand public works project that would enlist the energies and ideas of broad sectors of society but would remain under the auspices of royal government. Bacon's institution of natural philosophy would be to reconcile private intellectual ambitions with public interests to the benefit of civil society, as his scientific utopia, the New Atlantis (1627), envisioned.

Francis Bacon never gained financial or political support for his scientific program during his lifetime. His philosophic influence in England was negligible during the first third of the seventeenth century, although his importance was understood in the 1620s by Continental philosophers such as Pierre Gassendi, Marin Mersenne, René Descartes, Christiaan Huygens, and Isaac Beeckman. By mid-century, however, Bacon's works were highly valued everywhere. In the 1640s, Protestant educational reformists led by Samuel Hartlib saw Bacon as a forerunner. John Wilkins, Seth Ward, and John Webster followed Bacon in attempting to devise an accurate scientific language. But Bacon's greatest influence was on the early members of England's Royal Society (est. 1662), who viewed him as their intellectual progenitor. Bacon's star blazed bright into the eighteenth century, but was clouded in the nineteenth, when biographers charged him with perfidy in prosecuting his treasonous former patron, the earl of Essex. Nonetheless, the upsurge in published studies of Bacon's life and work at the turn of the twenty-first century makes evident his status as a seminal figure in the history of early modern science.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Bacon, Francis. The Advancement of Learning. Edited by Michael Kiernan. Oxford, 2000.

——. The Essayes or Counsel, Civill and Morall. Edited by Michael Kiernan. Oxford, 1985.

——. The New Organon. Edited by Lisa Jardine and Michael Silverthorne. Cambridge, U.K., and New York, 2000. Translation of Novum Organum (1620).

Secondary Sources

Solomon, Julie Robin. Objectivity in the Making: Francis Bacon and the Politics of Inquiry. Baltimore, 2003.

Weinberger, Jerry. Science, Faith, and Politics: Francis Bacon and the Utopian Roots of the Modern Age. Ithaca, N.Y., 1985.

Whitney, Charles. Francis Bacon and Modernity. New Haven, 1986.

—JULIE ROBIN SOLOMON

 
History Dictionary: Bacon, Francis
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An English politician, scientist, and author of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries; one of the leaders of the Renaissance in England. (See also under “Literature in English.”)

 
Essay: Francis Bacon and the scientific method
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Francis Bacon is one of the important thinkers of the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century. Although Bacon was neither a mathematician nor an experimental scientist, he exerted great influence on his contemporaries by introducing a method in which science is based on observation and experimentation.

He argued that the sciences should follow the example of the "mechanical arts" by being "founded on nature." But he also asserted that the mechanical arts should have science as their master. Bacon was one of the first thinkers to bridge the gap that existed between technology and the sciences. Since antiquity, technical invention was unrelated to science; it was the domain of the artisan. Artisans built machines based on empirical experience only. Science was thought to deal with ideas only. Bacon strongly opposed this concept and asserted that the knowledge of practical things also belongs to science. Because Bacon was not a scientist himself (although he died from a cold caught while stuffing a chicken with snow in an experiment with refrigeration), he extended his ideas on science to every aspect of human life. In Bacon's view, science not only serves to fulfill our intellectual curiosity, but it is also useful in all phases of humanity.

Bacon was one of the first to fully understand that knowledge is power. He believed science would serve to improve the human condition and create a better world, and stated that the final goal of science is "the relief of man's estate" and the "effecting of all things possible."

Bacon described a model of such a better world in his book New Atlantis. New Atlantis is an island with a utopian society whose well-being is entirely based on science and technology. In his book Bacon gave his contemporaries an extraordinary look into the future of technology. He mentions the skyscraper ("High Towers, the Highest about half a Mile in height"), the refrigeration of food, air-conditioning ("Chambers of Health, wher wee qualifie the Aire"), telephones ("meanes to convey Sounds in Trunks and Pipes"), airplanes, and submarines.

 
Quotes By: Francis Bacon
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Quotes:

"He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other."

"There is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man's self."

"The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall."

"People of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon and seldom drive business home to it's conclusion, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success."

"Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read."

"Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success."

See more famous quotes by Francis Bacon

 
Wikipedia: Francis Bacon
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 This article's introduction section may not adequately summarize its contents. To comply with Wikipedia's lead section guidelines, please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of the article's key points. (April 2009)
For other persons named Francis Bacon, see Francis Bacon (disambiguation).
Francis Bacon
Western philosophy
Renaissance philosophy

Sir Francis Bacon, Viscount St Alban
Full name Francis Bacon
School/tradition Empiricism, materialism.

Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban KC (22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), son of Nicholas Bacon by his second wife Anne (Cooke) Bacon, was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, and author. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Although his political career ended in disgrace, he remained extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific revolution. Indeed, his dedication may have brought him into a rare historical group of scientists who were killed by their own experiments.

His works established and popularized an inductive methodology for scientific inquiry, often called the Baconian method or simply, the scientific method. His demand for a planned procedure of investigating all things natural marked a new turn in the rhetorical and theoretical framework for science, much of which still surrounds conceptions of proper methodology today.

Bacon was knighted in 1603, created Baron Verulam in 1618, and Viscount St Alban in 1621; without heirs, both peerages became extinct upon his death.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Trinity College, Great Court with fountain

Biographers believe that Bacon was educated at home in his early years owing to poor health (which plagued him throughout his life), receiving tuition from John Walsall, a graduate of Oxford with a strong leaning towards Puritanism. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, on 5 April 1573 at the age of twelve,[1] living for three years there together with his older brother Anthony under the personal tutelage of Dr John Whitgift, future Archbishop of Canterbury. Bacon's education was conducted largely in Latin and followed the medieval curriculum. He was also educated at the University of Poitiers. It was at Cambridge that he first met the Queen, who was impressed by his precocious intellect, and was accustomed to calling him "the young Lord Keeper" [2].

His studies brought him to the belief that the methods and results of science as then practiced were erroneous. His reverence for Aristotle conflicted with his loathing of Aristotelian philosophy, which seemed to him barren, disputatious, and wrong in its objectives.

On June 27, 1576 he and Anthony entered de societate magistrorum at Gray's Inn. A few months later, Francis went abroad with Sir Amias Paulet, the English ambassador at Paris, while Anthony continued his studies at home. The state of government and society in France under Henry III afforded him valuable political instruction. For the next three years he visited Blois, Poitiers, Tours, Italy, and Spain. During his travels, Bacon studied language, statecraft, and civil law while performing routine diplomatic tasks. On at least one occasion he delivered diplomatic letters to England for Walsingham, Burghley, and Leicester, as well as for the queen.

The sudden death of his father in February 1579 prompted Bacon to return to England. Sir Nicholas had laid up a considerable sum of money to purchase an estate for his youngest son, but he died before doing so, and Francis was left with only a fifth of that money. Having borrowed money, Bacon got into debt. To support himself, he took up his residence in law at Gray's Inn in 1579. He made rapid progress. He was admitted to the bar in 1582, he became Bencher in 1586, and he was elected a reader in 1587, delivering his first set of lectures in Lent the following year.

Parliamentarian

Bacon's threefold goals were to discover truth, to serve his country, and to serve his church. Seeking a prestigious post would aid him toward these ends. In 1580, through his uncle, Lord Burghley, he applied for a post at court, which might enable him to pursue a life of learning. His application failed. For two years he worked quietly at Gray's Inn studying law, until admitted as an outer barrister in 1582.

The Hall, Gray’s Inn, 1892, by Herbert Railton

In 1584, he took his seat in parliament for Melcombe in Dorset, and subsequently for Taunton (1586). At this time, he began to write on the condition of parties in the church, as well as philosophical reform in the lost tract, Temporis Partus Maximus. Yet, he failed to gain a position he thought would lead him to success. He showed signs of sympathy to Puritanism, attending the sermons of the Puritan chaplain of Gray's Inn and accompanying his mother to the Temple chapel to hear Walter Travers. This led to the publication of his earliest surviving tract, which criticised the English church's suppression of the Puritan clergy. In the Parliament of 1586, openly, he urged execution for Mary Queen of Scots.

About this time, he again approached his powerful uncle for help, the result of which may be traced in his rapid progress at the bar. In 1589, he received the valuable appointment of reversion to the Clerkship of the Star Chamber, although he did not formally take office until 1608 - a post which was worth £16,000 per annum.[3]

In 1592, he was commissioned to write a response to the Jesuit Robert Parson's anti-government tract entitled 'Certain observations made upon a libel' identifying England with the ideals of Republican Athens against the belligerence of Spain.

Attorney General

Bacon soon became acquainted with Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex (1567–1601), Queen Elizabeth's favourite. By 1591, he acted as the earl's confidential adviser. Bacon took his seat for Middlesex when in February 1593 Elizabeth called a Parliament to investigate a Roman Catholic plot against her. Bacon's opposition to a bill that would levy triple subsidies in half the usual time offended many people. Opponents accused him of seeking popularity. For a time, the royal court excluded him.

When the Attorney-Generalship fell vacant in 1594, Lord Essex's influence was not enough to secure Bacon's candidacy into the office. Likewise, Bacon failed to become a solicitor in 1595. To console him for these disappointments, Essex presented him with a property at Twickenham, which he sold subsequently for £1,800, the equivalent of around £240,000 in 2006.

Memorial to Francis Bacon, in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge

In 1596, Bacon became Queen's Counsel, but missed the appointment of Master of the Rolls. During the next few years, his financial situation remained bad. His friends could find no public office for him, and a scheme for retrieving his position by a marriage with the wealthy and young widow Lady Elizabeth Hatton failed after she broke off their relationship upon accepting marriage to a wealthier man. Years later, Bacon still wrote of his regret that the marriage to Elizabeth had never taken place. In 1598 Bacon was arrested because of his debts. Afterwards however, his standing in the queen's eyes improved. Gradually, Bacon earned the standing of one of the learned counsels, though he had no commission or warrant and received no salary. His relationship with the queen further improved when he severed ties with Essex, a shrewd move because Essex was executed for treason in 1601.

With others, Bacon was appointed to investigate the charges against Essex, his former friend and benefactor. Bacon pressed the case hard against Essex. To justify himself, Bacon wrote A Declaration of the Practices and Treasons, etc., of ... the Earl of Essex. He received a gift of a fine of £1200 on one of Essex's accomplices.

The accession of James I brought Bacon into greater favour. He was knighted in 1603. In another shrewd move, Bacon wrote Apologie (defence) about his proceedings in the case of Essex, as Essex had favoured James to ascend to throne. The following year, during the course of the uneventful first parliament session, Bacon married Alice Barnham. In 1608, Bacon began working as the Clerkship of the Star Chamber. In spite of a generous income, old debts and spendthrift ways kept him indebted. He sought further promotion and wealth by supporting King James and his arbitrary policy.

Bacon gained reward with the office of Solicitor in June 1607. In 1610 the famous fourth parliament of James met. Despite Bacon's advice to him, James and the Commons found themselves at odds over royal prerogatives and the king's embarrassing extravagance. The House dissolved in February 1611. Through this, Bacon managed to stay in the favour of the king while retaining the confidence of the Commons.

In 1613, Bacon became attorney general, after advising the king to shuffle judicial appointments. As attorney general, Bacon prosecuted Somerset in 1616. The parliament of April 1614 objected to Bacon's presence in the seat for Cambridge and to the various royal plans which Bacon had supported. Although he was allowed to stay, parliament passed a law that forbade the attorney-general to sit in parliament. His influence over the king inspired resentment or apprehension in many of his peers. Bacon continued to receive the King's favour. In 1618, King James appointed Bacon to the position of Lord Chancellor.

Lord Chancellor and public disgrace

The Tower of London

Bacon's public career ended in disgrace in 1621. After having fallen into debt, a Parliamentary Committee on the administration of the law charged him with twenty-three separate counts of corruption. To the lords, who sent a committee to inquire whether a confession was really his, he replied, "My lords, it is my act, my hand, and my heart; I beseech your lordships to be merciful to a broken reed." He was sentenced to a fine of £40,000, remitted by King James, to be committed to the Tower of London during the king's pleasure (his imprisonment lasted only a few days). More seriously, parliament declared Bacon incapable of holding future office or sitting in parliament. Narrowly, he escaped being deprived of his titles. Thenceforth the disgraced viscount devoted himself to study and writing.

Historians such as Nieves Mathews believe Bacon may have been innocent of the bribery charges; Bacon himself said that he pleaded guilty by force deliberately[citation needed] so to save the king from a worse political scandal, stating:

"I was the justest judge that was in England these last fifty years. When the book of all hearts is opened, I trust I shall not be found to have the troubled fountain of a corrupt heart. I know I have clean hands and a clean heart. I am as innocent of bribes as any born on St Innocents Day."

Personal relationships

Francis Bacon

Though the well-connected antiquary John Aubrey (1626-1697) noted among his private memoranda concerning Bacon, "He was a Pederast. His Ganimeds and Favourites tooke Bribes",[4] biographers continue to debate about Bacon's sexual inclinations and the precise nature of his personal relationships.[5]

When he was 36, Bacon engaged in the courtship of Elizabeth Hatton, a young widow of 20. Reportedly, she broke off their relationship upon accepting marriage to a wealthier man—Edward Coke. Years later, Bacon still wrote of his regret that the marriage to Elizabeth had never taken place.[6]

At the age of forty-five, Bacon married Alice Barnham (1592–1650), the fourteen-year-old daughter of a well-connected London alderman and M.P. Bacon wrote two sonnets proclaiming his love for Alice. The first sonnet was written during his courtship and the second sonnet on his wedding day, 10 May 1606. When Bacon was appointed Regent of the Kingdom, "by special Warrant of the King, Lady Bacon was given precedence over all other Court ladies".

Engraving of Alice Barnham

Reports of increasing friction in his marriage to Alice appeared, with speculation that some of this may have been due to financial resources not being as readily available to her as she was accustomed to having in the past. Alice was reportedly interested in fame and fortune, and when reserves of money were no longer available, there were complaints about where all the money was going. Alice Chambers Bunten wrote in her Life of Alice Barnham[7] that, upon their descent into debt, she actually went on trips to ask for financial favours and assistance from their circle of friends. Bacon disinherited her upon discovering her secret romantic relationship with John Underhill. He rewrote his will, which had previously been very generous to her (leaving her lands, goods, and income), revoking it all.

Several authors, such as A .L. Rowse, Alan Stewart, and Lisa Jardine,[8][9] believe that despite his marriage Bacon was either homosexual or at the very least bisexual. Professor Charles R. Forker[10] for example has explored the "historically documentable sexual preferences" of both King James and Bacon in addition to those of dramatist Christopher Marlowe and of Bacon's brother Anthony - and concluded they were oriented to "masculine love", a term that "seems to have been used exclusively to refer to the sexual preference of men for members of their own gender."[11] This conclusion has been disputed by other authors, such as Nieves Mathews,[12][13] who consider the sources to be questionable and the conclusions more open to interpretation.

Death

Monument to Bacon at his burial place, St Michael's Church in St Albans

In April 1626, Sir Francis Bacon came to Highgate near London, and died at the empty (except for the caretaker) Arundel mansion. A famous and influential account of the circumstances of his death was given by John Aubrey in his Brief Lives. Aubrey has been criticized for his evident credulousness in this and other works; on the other hand, he knew Thomas Hobbes, the philosopher and friend of Bacon. Aubrey's vivid account, which portrays Bacon as a martyr to experimental scientific method, has him journeying to Highgate through the snow with the King's physician when he is suddenly inspired by the possibility of using the snow to preserve meat. "They were resolved they would try the experiment presently. They alighted out of the coach and went into a poor woman's house at the bottom of Highgate hill, and bought a fowl, and made the woman exenterate it". After stuffing the fowl with snow, he happened to contract a fatal case of pneumonia. Some people, including Aubrey, consider these two contiguous, possibly coincidental events as related and causative of his death: "The Snow so chilled him that he immediately fell so extremely ill, that he could not return to his Lodging ... but went to the Earle of Arundel's house at Highgate, where they put him into ... a damp bed that had not been layn-in ... which gave him such a cold that in 2 or 3 days as I remember Mr Hobbes told me, he died of Suffocation."

Being unwittingly on his deathbed, the philosopher wrote his last letter to his absent host and friend Lord Arundel:

"My very good Lord,—I was likely to have had the fortune of Caius Plinius the elder, who lost his life by trying an experiment about the burning of Mount Vesuvius; for I was also desirous to try an experiment or two touching the conservation and induration of bodies. As for the experiment itself, it succeeded excellently well; but in the journey between London and Highgate, I was taken with such a fit of casting as I know not whether it were the Stone, or some surfeit or cold, or indeed a touch of them all three. But when I came to your Lordship's House, I was not able to go back, and therefore was forced to take up my lodging here, where your housekeeper is very careful and diligent about me, which I assure myself your Lordship will not only pardon towards him, but think the better of him for it. For indeed your Lordship's House was happy to me, and I kiss your noble hands for the welcome which I am sure you give me to it. I know how unfit it is for me to write with any other hand than mine own, but by my troth my fingers are so disjointed with sickness that I cannot steadily hold a pen."[14]

He died at Lord Arundel's home[15] on 9 April 1626, leaving assets of about £7,000 and debts to the amount of £22,000.

This account appears in a biography by William Rawley, Bacon's personal secretary and chaplain:

"He died on the ninth day of April in the year 1626, in the early morning of the day then celebrated for our Saviour's resurrection, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, at the Earl of Arundel's house in Highgate, near London, to which place he casually repaired about a week before; God so ordaining that he should die there of a gentle fever, accidentally accompanied with a great cold, whereby the defluxion of rheum fell so plentifully upon his breast, that he died by suffocation."[16]

At his April 1626 funeral, over thirty great minds collected together their eulogies of him. It appears from these that he was not only loved deeply, but that there was something about his character which led men even of the stature of Ben Jonson to hold him in reverence and awe. A volume of the 32 eulogies was published in Latin in 1730.[17]

Philosophy and works

Bacon did not propose an actual philosophy, but rather a method of developing philosophy. He wrote that, although philosophy at the time used the deductive syllogism to interpret nature, the philosopher should instead proceed through inductive reasoning from fact to axiom to law. Before beginning this induction, the inquirer is to free his or her mind from certain false notions or tendencies which distort the truth. These are called "Idols"[18] (idola), and are of four kinds: "Idols of the Tribe" (idola tribus), which are common to the race; "Idols of the Den" (idola specus), which are peculiar to the individual; "Idols of the Marketplace" (idola fori), coming from the misuse of language; and "Idols of the Theatre" (idola theatri), which result from an abuse of authority. The end of induction is the discovery of forms, the ways in which natural phenomena occur, the causes from which they proceed.

Derived through use of his methods, Bacon explicates his somewhat fragmentary ethical system in the seventh and eighth books of his De augmentis scientiarum (1623). He distinguishes between duty to the community, an ethical matter, and duty to God, a religious matter. Bacon claimed that [1] any moral action is the action of the human will, which is governed by belief and spurred on by the passions; [2] good habit is what aids men in directing their will toward the good; [3] no universal rules can be made, as both situations and men's characters differ.

Regarding faith, in De augmentis, he writes that "the more discordant, therefore, and incredible, the divine mystery is, the more honour is shown to God in believing it, and the nobler is the victory of faith." He writes in "The Essays: Of Atheism" that "a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion."

Bacon contrasted the new approach of the development of science with that of the Middle Ages. He said:

"Men have sought to make a world from their own conception and to draw from their own minds all the material which they employed, but if, instead of doing so, they had consulted experience and observation, they would have the facts and not opinions to reason about, and might have ultimately arrived at the knowledge of the laws which govern the material world."

Bacon's works include his Essays, as well as the Colours of Good and Evil and the Meditationes Sacrae, all published in 1597. His famous aphorism, "knowledge is power", is found in the Meditations. He published The Proficience and Advancement of Learning in 1605. Bacon also wrote In felicem memoriam Elizabethae, a eulogy for the queen written in 1609; and various philosophical works which constitute the fragmentary and incomplete Instauratio magna (Great Renewal), the most important part of which is the Novum Organum (New Instrument, published 1620); in this work he cites three world-changing inventions:

"Printing, gunpowder and the compass: These three have changed the whole face and state of things throughout the world; the first in literature, the second in warfare, the third in navigation; whence have followed innumerable changes, in so much that no empire, no sect, no star seems to have exerted greater power and influence in human affairs than these mechanical discoveries."[19]

Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker have argued that Bacon was not as idealistic as his utopian works suggest, rather that he was what might today be considered an advocate of genocidal eugenics. A year prior to the release of New Atlantis, Bacon published an essay that reveals a version of himself not often seen in history. This essay, a lesser-known work entitled, "An Advertisement Touching an Holy War," advocated the elimination of detrimental societal elements by the English and compared this to the endeavors of Hercules while establishing civilized society in ancient Greece. He saw the "extirpation and debellating of giants, monsters, and foreign tyrants, not only as lawful, but as meritorious, even divine honour..."[20] Laurence Lampert has interpreted Bacon's treatise An Advertisement Touching a Holy War as advocating "spiritual warfare against the spiritual rulers of European civilization."[21]

Bacon's Utopia

Main article: The New Atlantis

In 1623 Bacon expressed his aspirations and ideals in The New Atlantis. Released in 1627, this was his creation of an ideal land where "generosity and enlightenment, dignity and splendor, piety and public spirit" were the commonly held qualities of the inhabitants of Bensalem. In this work, he portrayed a vision of the future of human discovery and knowledge. The plan and organization of his ideal college, "Solomon's House", envisioned the modern research university in both applied and pure science.

The New Instrument

Main article: Baconian method

The Novum Organum is a philosophical work by Francis Bacon published in 1620. This is a reference to Aristotle's work Organon, which was his treatise on logic and syllogism. In Novum Organum, Bacon details a new system of logic he believes to be superior to the old ways of syllogism. In this work, we see the development of the Baconian method consists of procedures for isolating the form nature, or cause, of a phenomenon, including the method of agreement, method of difference, and method of concomitant variation.

List of published works

  • Essays (1597)
  • The Elements of the Common Law of England (1597)
  • A Declaration of the Practises & Treasons Attempted and Committed by Robert, late Earl of Essex and his Complices (1601)
  • Francis Bacon His Apology, in Certain Imputations Concerning the late Earl of Essex (1604)
  • Certain Considerations Touching the Better Pacification and Edification of the Church of England (1604)
  • Valerius Terminus of the Interpretation of Nature (1604)
  • The Proficience and Advancement of Learning (1605)
  • De sapientia veterum liber (1609)
  • The Charge of Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, the King's Attorney-General, Touching Duels (1614)
  • The Wisdom of the Ancients (1619)
  • Novum Organum (1620)
  • The History of the Reign of King Henry the Seventh (1622)
  • Apophthegms, New and Old (1625)
  • The Translation of Certain Psalms (1625)
  • The New Atlantis (1626)
  • Sylva Sylvarum (1627)
  • Scripta in naturali et universli philisophia (pub. 1653)
  • Baconiana, Or Certain Genuine Remains Of Sr. Francis Bacon (pub. posth. 1679)

Influence

Bacon's ideas about the improvement of the human lot were influential in the 1630s and 1650s among a number of Parliamentarian scholars. During the Restoration, Bacon was commonly invoked as a guiding spirit of the Royal Society founded under Charles II in 1660.[22][23] In the nineteenth century his emphasis on induction was revived and developed by William Whewell, among others.[24]

North America

There are some scholars who believe that Bacon's vision for a Utopian New World in North America was laid out in his novel The New Atlantis, which depicts a mythical island, Bensalem, in the Pacific Ocean west of Peru. He envisioned a land where there would be greater rights for women, the abolishing of slavery, elimination of debtors' prisons, separation of church and state, and freedom of religious and political expression.[25][26][27][28] Francis Bacon played a leading role in creating the British colonies, especially in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Newfoundland. His government report on “The Virginia Colony” was made in 1609. Francis Bacon and his associates formed the Newfoundland Colonization Company and in 1610 sent John Guy to found a colony in Newfoundland. In 1910 Newfoundland issued a postage stamp to commemorate Francis Bacon's role in establishing Newfoundland. The stamp states about Bacon, "the guiding spirit in Colonization Schemes in 1610."[6] Thomas Jefferson considered Francis Bacon to be one of the three greatest men who ever lived, "Bacon, Locke and Newton" were "the three greatest men that have ever lived, without any exception" [29]

Religious influence

Main article: Occult theories about Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon's influence can also be seen on a variety of religious and spiritual authors, and on groups that have utilized his writings in their own belief systems.[30][31][32][33][34]

Modern portrayals

In cinema, Bacon has been most memorably portrayed by Donald Crisp in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) starring Bette Davis and Errol Flynn. He was also played in the 2005 Golden Globe winning mini-series Elizabeth I by Will Keen. On television, John Nettleton played Bacon in the 1970s BBC production of Elizabeth R starring Glenda Jackson.

Historical debates and fringe theories

Bacon and Shakespeare

Main articles: Baconian theory and Bacon's cipher

The Baconian theory of Shakespearean authorship holds that Sir Francis Bacon wrote the plays conventionally attributed to William Shakespeare.

The mainstream view is that William Shakespeare of Stratford, an actor in the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later the King's Men), wrote the poems and plays that bear his name. The Baconians, however, hold that scholars are so focused on the details of Shakespeare's life that they neglect to investigate the many facts that they see as connecting Bacon to the Shakespearean work.

Sir Francis Bacon's letter to John Davies, "so desiring you to be good to concealed poets."

The main Baconian evidence is founded on the presentation of a motive for concealment, the circumstances surrounding the first known performance of The Comedy of Errors, the close proximity of Bacon to the William Strachey letter upon which many scholars think The Tempest was based, perceived allusions in the plays to Bacon's legal acquaintances, the many supposed parallels with the plays of Bacon's published work and entries in the Promus (his private wastebook), Bacon's interest in civil histories, and ostensible autobiographical allusions in the plays. Because Bacon had first-hand knowledge of government cipher methods, most Baconians see it as feasible that he left his signature somewhere in the Shakespearean work.

Supporters of the standard view, often referred to as "Stratfordian" or "Mainstream", dispute all contentions in favour of Bacon, and criticize Bacon's poetry as not being comparable in quality with that of Shakespeare.

Secret societies

Main article: Occult theories about Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon often gathered with the men at Gray's Inn to discuss politics and philosophy, and to try out various theatrical scenes that he admitted writing.[35] Bacon's alleged connection to the Rosicrucians and the Freemasons has been widely discussed by authors and scholars in many books.[36]. However others, including Daphne du Maurier (in her biography of Bacon), have argued there is no substantive evidence to support claims of involvement with the Rosicrucians.[37] Frances Yates[38] does not make the claim that Bacon was a Rosicrucian, but presents evidence that he was nevertheless involved in some of the more closed intellectual movements of his day. She argues that Bacon's movement for the advancement of learning was closely connected with the German Rosicrucian movement, while Bacon's The New Atlantis portrays a land ruled by Rosicrucians. He apparently saw his own movement for the advancement of learning to be in conformity with Rosicrucian ideals.[39]

The Italianate York Water Gate, built about 1626 (2004)

Parentage theories

A small number of authors have theorized that Francis Bacon could have been the unacknowledged son of Queen Elizabeth and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester[40][41][42] and that Elizabeth's other secret biological son was Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex (whom the Queen forced Bacon to prosecute for treason). There is documented evidence that Elizabeth visited Nicholas Bacon's house at Gorhambury at least twice and was entertained by the eight or nine year old Francis.[43][44]

Alfred Dodd (writing in the first half of the c.20th) claimed that by the age of fifteen Bacon was frequently present at the Elizabethan Court. Robert Cecil allegedly would whisper the secret to the ladies of the Court. The Queen, overhearing Lady Scales, repeating the story, is said to have seized the girl and beat her furiously. Bacon intervened. Enraged that he should take the girl's part, Elizabeth added: "Though you are my own child, I bar you from the Succession for withstanding your mother." Anne Bacon is said to have confirmed the story, adding the Queen was married in a secret ceremony on 21 January 1561 in the house of Lord Pembroke, and that Nicholas Bacon had been one of the witnesses.[45] No other modern-day historians or biographers have produced any evidence whatsoever to support Dodd's claim.

Noteworthy relative

It is widely believed[citation needed] that Bacon is a distant relative of the English painter Francis Bacon, who was named in honor of the original. The artist's father claimed descent from Bacon's elder half-brother, Nicholas. The homosexual painter "made little of his family's traditional claim" but was more "amused by his namesake's well-known prodigality and homosexuality" and excited by the "notion that the philosopher-statesman might also have been 'Shakespeare', whose work he revered."[46]

Timeline

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Bacon, Francis in Venn, J. & J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge University Press, 10 vols, 1922–1958.
  2. ^ Collins, Arthur (1741). The English Baronetage: Containing a Genealogical and Historical Account of All the English Baronets, Now Existing: Their Descents, Marriages, and Issues; Memorable Actions, Both in War, and Peace; Religious and Charitable Donations; Deaths, Places of Burial and Monumental Iiscriptions [sic]. Printed for Tho. Wotton at the Three Daggers and Queen's Head. p. 5. 
  3. ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, volume 2, p.126
  4. ^ Oliver Lawson Dick, ed. Aubrey's Brief Lives. Edited from the Original Manuscripts, 1949, s.v. "Francis Bacon, Viscount of St. Albans" p. 11.
  5. ^ See opposing opinions of: A. L. Rowse, Homosexuals in History, New York: Carroll & Garf, 1977. page 44; Jardine, Lisa; Stewart, Alan Hostage To Fortune: The Troubled Life of Francis Bacon Hill & Wang, 1999. page 148; Nieves Mathews, Francis Bacon: The History of a Character Assassination, Yale University Press, 1996; Ross Jackson, The Companion to Shaker of the Speare: The Francis Bacon Story, England: Book Guild Publishing, 2005. pages 45 - 46
  6. ^ a b Alfred Dodd, Francis Bacon's Personal Life Story', Volume 2 - The Age of James, England: Rider & Co., 1949, 1986. pages 157 - 158, 425, 502 - 503, 518 - 532
  7. ^ Alice Chambers Bunten, Life of Alice Barnham, Wife of Sir Francis Bacon, London: Oliphants Ltd. 1928.
  8. ^ A. L. Rowse, Homosexuals in History, New York: Carroll & Garf, 1977. page 44
  9. ^ Jardine, Lisa; Stewart, Alan Hostage To Fortune: The Troubled Life of Francis Bacon Hill & Wang, 1999. page 148
  10. ^ Forker, Masculine Love, Renaissance Writing, and the New Invention of Homosexuality: An Addendum in the Journal of Homosexuality (1996), Indiana University
  11. ^ Journal of Homosexuality, Volume: 31 Issue: 3, 1996, pages 85-93, ISSN: 0091-8369
  12. ^ Nieves Mathews, Francis Bacon: The History of a Character Assassination, Yale University Press, 1996
  13. ^ Ross Jackson, The Companion to Shaker of the Speare: The Francis Bacon Story, England: Book Guild Publishing, 2005. pages 45 - 46
  14. ^ Bacon, The Works of Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England. A new Edition, ed.Basil Montagu, London: 1825-1834
  15. ^ Bryant, Mark: Private Lives, 2001, p.22.
  16. ^ William Rawley (Bacon's personal secretary and chaplain) Resuscitatio, or, Bringing into Publick Light Several Pieces of the Works, Civil, Historical, Philosophical, & Theological, Hitherto Sleeping; of the Right Honourable Francis Bacon....Together with his Lordship's Life 1657. "Francis Bacon, the glory of his age and nation, the adorner and ornament of learning, was born in York House, or York Place, in the Strand, on the two and twentieth day of January, in the year of our Lord 1560."
  17. ^ W.G.C. Gundry, ed. Manes Verulamani. This important volume consists of 32 eulogies originally published in Latin shortly after Bacon's funeral in 1626. Bacon's peers refer to him as "a supreme poet" and "a concealed poet," and also link him with the theatre.
  18. ^ "Idols" is the usual translation of idola, but 'illusion' is perhaps a more accurate translation to modern English. See footnote, The New Organon, (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 2000), p.18.
  19. ^ Novum Organum, Liber I, CXXIX - Adapted from the 1863 translation
  20. ^ Linebaugh, Peter, and Marcus Rediker. The Many Headed Hydra. Boston: Beacon P, 2000. 36-70. Argues for an alternative point of view towards Bacon
  21. ^ An Advertisement Touching a Holy War by Francis Bacon, Laurence Lampert (Editor). Waveland Press 2000 ISBN 978-1577661283
  22. ^ Julian Martin, Francis Bacon: The State and the Reform of Natural Philosophy, 1992
  23. ^ Byron Steel, Sir Francis Bacon: The First Modern Mind, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran and Co., Inc., 1930
  24. ^ Peter Urbach, Francis Bacon's Philosophy of Science, Open Court Publishing Co., 1987. A study which argues from a close consideration of Bacon's actual words in context, that he was immensely more sophisticated and modern than is generally allowed. Bacon's reputation as a philosopher of science has sunk since the 17th and early 18th centuries, when he was accorded the title "Father of Experimental Philosophy".
  25. ^ Harvey Wheeler, Francis Bacon’s Case of the Post-Nati:(1608); Foundations of Anglo-American Constitutionalism; An Application of Critical Constitutional Theory, Ward, 1998
  26. ^ Howard B. White, Peace Among the Willows: The Political Philosophy of Francis Bacon, The Hague Martinus Nijhoff, 1968
  27. ^ Harvey Wheeler, Francis Bacon’s "Verulamium": the Common Law Template of The Modern in English Science and Culture, 1999
  28. ^ Frances Yates, (essay) Bacon's Magic, in Frances Yates, Ideas and Ideals in the North European Renaissance, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984
  29. ^ http://www.cuttingedge.org/articles/p175.htm
  30. ^ Saint Germain Foundation. The History of the "I AM" Activity and Saint Germain Foundation. Schaumburg, Illinois: Saint Germain Press 2003
  31. ^ Luk, A.D.K.. Law of Life — Book II. Pueblo, Colorado: A.D.K. Luk Publications 1989, pages 254 - 267
  32. ^ White Paper - Wesak World Congress 2002. Acropolis Sophia Books & Works 2003.
  33. ^ Partridge, Christopher ed. New Religions: A Guide: New Religious Movements, Sects and Alternative Spiritualities Oxford University Press, USA 2004.
  34. ^ Schroeder, Werner Ascended Masters and Their Retreats Ascended Master Teaching Foundation 2004, pages 250 - 255
  35. ^ Frances Yates, Theatre of the World, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969
  36. ^ Bryan Bevan, The Real Francis Bacon, England: Centaur Press, 1960
  37. ^ Daphne du Maurier, The Winding Stair, Biography of Bacon 1976.
  38. ^ Frances Yates, The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age, pages 61 - 68, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979
  39. ^ Frances Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972
  40. ^ Richardson, Jerusha D. The Lover Of Queen Elizabeth: Being The Life And Character Of Robert Dudley Earl Of Leicester 1533-1588 T. W. Laurie 1907 (Reprint: Kessinger 2006 ISBN-1428612491)
  41. ^ Comyns Beaumont, The Private Life of the Virgin Queen, London England, 1947
  42. ^ Alfred Dodd, The Marriage of Elizabeth Tudor, Rider, 1940. Still maintained as a State secret the author presents allegedly detailed historical evidence that the "virgin queen" not only married Robert Dudley but had two offspring with him.
  43. ^ Jean Overton Fuller, Sir Francis Bacon: A Biography, East-West Publications, 1981.
  44. ^ Arthur Cornwall, Francis the First Unacknowledged King of Great Britain and Ireland, 1936
  45. ^ Alfred Dodd, Secret History of Francis Bacon, London: The C. W. Daniel Company Ltd. 1941. pages 16 - 17, 97 - 102
  46. ^ [Peppiatt, Michael (1996) Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson]

Sources

  • Material originally from the 1911 Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religion.
  • Material originally from the 1912 Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religion.
  • This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
  • This article incorporates public domain text from: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London, J. M. Dent & sons; New York, E. P. Dutton.
  • John Farrell, "The Science of Suspicion." Paranoia and Modernity: Cervantes to Rousseau (Cornell UP, 2006), chapter six.
  • "Our Western Heritage" Roselle / Young: Chapter five "The 'Scientific Revolution' and the 'Intellectual Revolution'".

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March 1, 2005

A man's nature runs either to herbs, or to weeds; therefore let him seasonably water the one, and destroy the other.
- Francis Bacon

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