Francis Bacon

(1561–1626). British statesman and philosopher, born at York House in the Strand, London, the younger son of Sir Nicholas Bacon (1509–79), who was Queen Elizabeth's Keeper of the Great Seal — which office Francis later held. He became Baron Verulam, Viscount St Albans, a mark of his highly distinguished legal career culminating in his appointment as Lord High Chancellor in 1618. His public career ended sadly in 1621 when he was convicted on charges of bribery, charges that were probably unfair, given the contemporary professional morality.

Bacon is distinguished for setting out what was to be considered the technique and philosophy of modern science. He developed, from Aristotelian beginnings, inductive principles for amassing and interpreting data — especially for establishing causes. Whereas Aristotle saw causes as the essence of things, to be discovered by descriptive analysis, Bacon stressed the importance of enumerating instances where characteristics and events occur, or do not occur, in association. By setting out methods of induction, which included looking for exceptions and refutations of hypotheses, he separated science from philosophy. He saw his inductive methods as instruments for generating knowledge. The Royal Society was founded in London in 1660, essentially on the basis of Bacon's The Advancement of Learning (1605) and Novum organum (1620). In his Essays, written throughout his life, Bacon appears as a highly literate and wise man. He was thus a philosopher in the fullest sense of the word, as well as having the vision to set out principles that greatly influenced the development of modern science.

(Published 1987)

— Richard L. Gregory

Bibliography
• Bacon, F. (1857). Works. Eds. J. Spedding, R. L. Ellis, and D. D. Heath.
• Quinton, A. (1980). Francis Bacon.

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