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Francis Bacon Biography

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BACON, FRANCIS, BARON VERULAM, VISCOUNT SAINT ALBANS (1561-1626). A celebrated English philosopher. He was born in London on Jan. 22, 1561. His father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, was Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and his mother was the learned Ann Cooke, sister of Burleigh's (see CECIL, WILLIAM) wife. In early childhood Bacon manifested superior powers and an ardent love of knowledge; his precocious intelligence was so great, and his sedateness so remarkable, that Queen Elizabeth took pleasure in calling him her "young lord keeper." In his thirteenth year he was sent to the University of Cambridge, which he quitted after a residence of but two years. On leaving the university in 1576 he went to Paris in the suite of Sir Amias Paulet, the English Ambassador, and during his residence there he is said to have studied statistics and diplomacy. The sudden death of his father in 1579 recalled him to England, where, after failing to procure from the government a provision which would enable him to devote himself to science and literature, he betook himself for several years to the study of law and was admitted to the bar in 1582. Two years afterward he entered Parliament from the borough of Melcombe Regis. In 1584 or 1585 he published a "Letter of Advice to Queen Elizabeth," in which he advocated "that whosoever would not bear arms against all foreign princes, and namely the Pope, that should anyway invade her Majesty's dominions, should be a traitor." In 1586 he became a bencher of Gray's Inn, and in 1589 wrote another letter, this time in defense of Elizabeth's course in church matters. But neither these letters nor the support of the Earl of Essex, whose favor he had won, could counteract the effect produced on the Queen and the Lords by his opposition in Parliament to some taxation measures in which the government was interested. A chance was given him to apologize for this act of antagonism, but he resolutely refused, and thereby lost an opportunity to become Attorney-General (1594). Another failure to apologize was followed by failure to secure the solicitor-generalship, although he was now supported by both Essex and Burleigh. These facts it is well to keep in mind, because they show a strength of character in striking contrast to the glaring sycophancy of his conduct in later years. When Essex found that he could do nothing for his favorite at court, he presented him with a private estate worth about £1800, and also supported him in a suit for the hand of Lady Hatton, whom Bacon wished to marry for her wealth. Lady Hatton, however, preferred Coke, Bacon's future enemy. In spite of his readiness thus to accept the patronage of Essex, Bacon acted as Queen's counsel against his friend when the latter was brought to trial for his conduct in Ireland. His motives in this matter have been differently interpreted. Some say that, because he was straitened in his circumstances at this time, he was anxious to conciliate the court. Others maintain, with perhaps more justice, that he took this stand as being the only course open to him for securing the least severe sentence possible for his old friend. Essex himself, however, did not concur in this interpretation of Bacon's conduct. The result of this first trial of Essex was that he was set at liberty; only, however, shortly afterward to be tried again-this time for conspiracy. Bacon was now, without doubt, largely instrumental in securing for the crown the verdict against the accused. The merits of the case cannot be discussed here. Bacon asserted that his official position made it necessary that he should ignore ties of friendship; but then perhaps he should not have allowed himself to be put in such a position. Furthermore, the conscientious performance of official duties at the expense of his personal advantage was by no means a conspicuous trait in his character. After the Earl's execution lie wrote, at the request of the Queen, A Declaration of the Practices and Treasons Attempted and Committed by Robert, Earl of Essex, which was printed by authority, but with so many changes made by another authority, that Bacon cannot justly be held responsible for its authorship.

With the advent of the reign of James I, a new opportunity opened to Bacon, and by paying court to the King he made rapid progress. He was knighted in 1603; and in the following, year a pension of £60 was attached to his office of learned counsel. In 1606 he succeeded in his ambition to marry a wealthy woman by winning the hand of Alice Barnham. In 1607 he secured the long-coveted solicitor-generalship, and thus came into the possession of what, in money of to-day, would amount to £4000 a year. This appointment Bacon had probably secured by his defense of royal supremacy in a dispute concerning the King's jurisdiction over some border counties. From now on he volunteered much advice to his sovereign, who, however, refused to be guided by him. Bacon's advice was marked by a strange mixture of great wisdom and unworthy trivialities. He showed wonderful insight into the political situation and suggested pans which, if carried out, might have averted much of the trouble that ensued. But James was not a king to listen to suggestions conflicting with his inclinations, while Bacon unfortunately did not possess a character that could give weight to his advice. In the coming struggle Bacon became more and more obsequious. He justified himself in his own eyes by the excuse that he was keeping in touch with the King for the good of his country; but it was now obvious to every patriot that no good would come to his country from the willful King. In 1613 Bacon was appointed Attorney General; and in this new office he soon became entangled in dispute with Coke on constitutional principles, and made himself obnoxious to the people at large by his unscrupulous cupidity. His subservience to the King, however, served him in good stead for a few more years. In 1617 he was appointed to the position his father had held before him, that of Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and in the year following he attained the high dignity of the Lord Chancellorship and the title of Baron Verulam. In 1621 he was created Viscount St. Albans. The enjoyment of his new honors was, however, very brief. The storm which had been gathering against the government broke first on Bacon's head. On the assembling of Parliament he was charged with bribery. During the trial he himself confessed to the Lords that "there had been a great deal of corruption and neglect," for which he "was heartily and penitently sorry:" On the first of May he was deprived of the Seal, and then followed sentence on him, condemning him to pay a fine of £40,000, to be imprisoned during the King's pleasure, and to be excluded from Parliament and from court. The fine, however, was remitted by the King, and the imprisonment lasted only two days. Some time afterward he was even allowed to appear at court. It seems that he now conceived the hope of reentering political life; but even in those debauched days this was impossible, and he thenceforth devoted himself to literature and science. He died, April 9, 1626, of a cold caught in making an experiment to test the efficacy of snow to preserve flesh.

The first edition of his Essays appeared in 1597; his two books on the Advancement of Learning in 1605 (this work was afterward treated as the first part of the projected Instauratio Magna) ; his De Sapientia Veterum (‘Wisdom of the Ancients’) in 1609; a revised edition of the Essays in 1612, while the final form was given to them in 1625; the Novum Organum (so called with reference to Aristotle's Organon) appeared in Latin in 1620 and was treated as the second part of the Instauratio. The third part of this comprehensively planned work, or at least a section of the third part, appeared in 1622, under the title Historia Naturalis et Emperimentalis ad condendam Philosophiam; sive Phœnomena Universi. Of the other three contemplated parts of the Instauratio only two prefaces remain. In 1622 he also published his chief historical work, History of the Reign of Henry VII. In 1623 appeared his De Augmentis Scientiarum, a Latin translation and extension of his Advancement of Learning. His last work, which was published posthumously (1627) , was Sylva Sylvarum, a book which showed very conclusively that he was not able, in practice, to live up to his scientific theory. The New Atlantis which appeared at the same time with the last-mentioned work, had been written as early as 1617. Besides these, he wrote several minor books and papers. His writings deal with a wide range of subjects, from jurisprudence-which he treated not as a mere lawyer, but as a legislator and philosopher-to morality and medicine. The Essays are a treasury of rich knowledge of human relations, and the style in which they are written has seldom been equaled by any English writer.

Bacon's reputation as an original philosopher, as an epoch maker in philosophic and scientific thought, was higher a generation or two ago than it is now. Yet his Novum Organum has done, perhaps, as much as any other single work toward inculcating into science the spirit of unbiased, accurate, and careful observation and experimentation. In it he maintains that all prepossessions, called "idols," must be abandoned, whether they be the common property of the race due to common modes of thought ("idols of the tribe"), or the peculiar possession of the individual ("idols of the, cave."); whether they arise from too great a dependence on language ("idols of the market place"), or from tradition ("idols of the theatre"). These idols once discarded, the seeker after truth must proceed to interrogate nature, not contenting himself with accepting what she has to say of her own accord. He must collect facts, arrange them in order, and then advance to the discovery of the laws that control their workings. This cannot be accomplished by the inductio per enumerationem simplicem, or mere inventory of all possible cases of the phenomena under investigation; but negative instances, i.e., cases in which the phenomena are absent, must be examined to discover wherein these instances differ from the affirmative instances--all this with a view to discover the "form" of the phenomena, or their abiding essence. This insistence upon the formal cause has its significance in connection with Bacon's exclusion of final causes or purposes from the domain of natural science. Not that purpose has no existence in the universe. On the contrary, Bacon believed in an overruling Providence with a perverse piety ill in accord with his life. But though religion can imagine the purposes of God, the business of the scientist is to understand the causal sequences, of nature as controlled by the essences of phenomena. In ethics Bacon is to be regarded as the forerunner of the English Hedonistic school, of which his disciple, Hobbes, is usually regarded as the founder. Bacon's own scientific work amounted to little. It is true that he propounded the theory that heat is a form of motion, but this suggestion seems rather to have been a happy guess than a belief scientifically grounded. He was an opponent of the Copernican system of astronomy, which be regarded as a strange fancy; and he seems to have known nothing of the work of Kepler. His enthusiasm for science was not disinterested, but was due to a belief that "knowledge is power"; that human conditions can best be improved by a more thorough acquaintance with the world in which human life must be lived.

Bacon's collected works were first published by Blackbourne in 1730; another collection, with a life, by Mallet, in 1740; a handsome but ill-arranged edition is that of Montagu in 17 vols. (London, 1825-36); the best is that edited by Spedding, Ellis, and Heath, in 7 vols. (1857-59), with Life and Letters (7 vols., ed. by Spedding, 1861-74). A noted review of Bacon's character and works is to be found among Macaulay's Essays. For more temperate estimates consult: Fowler, "Bacon," English Philosophers Series (London, 1881); Church, "Life of Bacon," Men of Letters Series (NewYork, 1884).

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. II (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 504-506.