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Sir Francis Bacon (later Lord Verulam and the Viscount St. Albans) was an English lawyer, statesman, essayist, historian, intellectual reformer, philosopher, and champion of modern science. Early in his career he claimed “all knowledge as his province” and afterwards dedicated himself to a wholesale revaluation and re-structuring of traditional learning. To take the place of the established tradition (a miscellany of Scholasticism, humanism, and natural magic), he proposed an entirely new system based on empirical and inductive principles and the active development of new arts and inventions, a system whose ultimate goal would be the production of practical knowledge for “the use and benefit of men” and the relief of the human condition.
At the same time that he was founding and promoting this new project for the advancement of learning, Bacon was also moving up the ladder of state service. His career aspirations had been largely disappointed under Elizabeth I, but with the ascension of James his political fortunes rose. Knighted in 1603, he was then steadily promoted to a series of offices, including Solicitor General (1607), Attorney General (1613), and eventually Lord Chancellor (1618). While serving as Chancellor, he was indicted on charges of bribery and forced to leave public office. He then retired to his estate where he devoted himself full time to his continuing literary, scientific, and philosophic work. He died in 1626, leaving behind a cultural legacy that, for better or worse, includes most of the foundation for the triumph of technology and for the modern world as we currently know it.
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Sir Francis Bacon (later Lord Verulam, the Viscount St. Albans, and Lord Chancellor of England) was born in London in 1561 to a prominent and well-connected family. His parents were Sir Nicholas Bacon, the Lord Keeper of the Seal, and Lady Anne Cooke, daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, a knight and one-time tutor to the royal family. Lady Anne was a learned woman in her own right, having acquired Greek and Latin as well as Italian and French. She was a sister-in-law both to Sir Thomas Hoby, the esteemed English translator of Castiglione, and to Sir William Cecil (later Lord Burghley), Lord Treasurer, chief counselor to Elizabeth I, and from 1572-1598 the most powerful man in England.
Bacon was educated at home at the family estate at Gorhambury in Herfordshire. In 1573, at the age of just twelve, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where the stodgy Scholastic curriculum triggered his lifelong opposition to Aristotelianism (though not to the works of Aristotle himself).
In 1576 Bacon began reading law at Gray’s Inn. Yet only a year later he interrupted his studies in order to take a position in the diplomatic service in France as an assistant to the ambassador. In 1579, while he was still in France, his father died, leaving him (as the second son of a second marriage and the youngest of six heirs) virtually without support. With no position, no land, no income, and no immediate prospects, he returned to England and resumed the study of law.
Bacon completed his law degree in 1582, and in 1588 he was named lecturer in legal studies at Gray’s Inn. In the meantime, he was elected to Parliament in 1584 as a member for Melcombe in Dorsetshire. He would remain in Parliament as a representative for various constituencies for the next 36 years.
In 1593 his blunt criticism of a new tax levy resulted in an unfortunate setback to his career expectations, the Queen taking personal offense at his opposition. Any hopes he had of becoming Attorney General or Solicitor General during her reign were dashed, though Elizabeth eventually relented to the extent of appointing Bacon her Extraordinary Counsel in 1596.
It was around this time that Bacon entered the service of Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex, a dashing courtier, soldier, plotter of intrigue, and sometime favorite of the Queen. No doubt Bacon viewed Essex as a rising star and a figure who could provide a much-needed boost to his own sagging career. Unfortunately, it was not long before Essex’s own fortunes plummeted following a series of military and political blunders culminating in a disastrous coup attempt. When the coup plot failed, Devereux was arrested, tried, and eventually executed, with Bacon, in his capacity as Queen’s Counsel, playing a vital role in the prosecution of the case.
In 1603, James I succeeded Elizabeth, and Bacon’s prospects for advancement dramatically improved. After being knighted by the king, he swiftly ascended the ladder of state and from 1604-1618 filled a succession of high-profile advisory positions:
As Lord Chancellor, Bacon wielded a degree of power and influence that he could only have imagined as a young lawyer seeking preferment. Yet it was at this point, while he stood at the very pinnacle of success, that he suffered his great Fall. In 1621 he was arrested and charged with bribery. After pleading guilty, he was heavily fined and sentenced to a prison term in the Tower of London. Although the fine was later waived and Bacon spent only four days in the Tower, he was never allowed to sit in Parliament or hold political office again.
The entire episode was a terrible disgrace for Bacon personally and a stigma that would cling to and injure his reputation for years to come. As various chroniclers of the case have pointed out, the accepting of gifts from suppliants in a law suit was a common practice in Bacon’s day, and it is also true that Bacon ended up judging against the two petitioners who had offered the fateful bribes. Yet the damage was done, and Bacon to his credit accepted the judgment against him without excuse. According to his own Essayes, or Counsels, he should have known and done better. (In this respect it is worth noting that during his forced retirement, Bacon revised and republished the Essayes, injecting an even greater degree of shrewdness into a collection already notable for its worldliness and keen political sense.) Macaulay in a lengthy essay declared Bacon a great intellect but (borrowing a phrase from Bacon’s own letters) a “most dishonest man,” and more than one writer has characterized him as cold, calculating, and arrogant. Yet whatever his flaws, even his enemies conceded that during his trial he accepted his punishment nobly, and moved on.
Bacon spent his remaining years working with renewed determination on his lifelong project: the reform of learning and the establishment of an intellectual community dedicated to the discovery of scientific knowledge for the “use and benefit of men.” The former Lord Chancellor died on 9 April, 1626, supposedly of a cold or pneumonia contracted while testing his theory of the preservative and insulating properties of snow.
Thought and Writings
In a way Bacon’s descent from political power was a fortunate fall,
for it represented a liberation from the bondage of public life resulting
in a remarkable final burst of literary and scientific activity. As Renaissance
scholar and Bacon expert Brian Vickers has reminded us, Bacon’s earlier works,
impressive as they are, were essentially products of his “spare time.” It
was only during his last five years that he was able to concentrate exclusively
on writing and produce, in addition to a handful of minor pieces: These late productions represented the capstone of a writing career
that spanned more than four decades and encompassed virtually an entire curriculum
of literary, scientific, and philosophical studies.
Literary Works
Despite the fanatical claims (and very un-Baconian credulity) of a
few admirers, it is a virtual certainty that Bacon did not write the
works traditionally attributed to William Shakespeare. Even so, the Lord
Chancellor’s high place in the history of English literature as well as his
influential role in the development of English prose style remain well-established
and secure. Indeed even if Bacon had produced nothing else but his masterful
Essayes (first published in 1597 and then revised and expanded in
1612 and 1625), he would still rate among the top echelon of 17th-century
English authors. And so when we take into account his other writings, e.g.,
his histories, letters, and especially his major philosophical and scientific
works, we must surely place him in the first rank of English literature’s
great men of letters and among its finest masters (alongside names like Johnson,
Mill, Carlyle, and Ruskin) of non-fiction prose. Bacon’s style, though elegant, is by no means as simple as it seems
or as it is often described. In fact it is actually a fairly complex affair
that achieves its air of ease and clarity more through its balanced cadences,
natural metaphors, and carefully arranged symmetries than through the use
of plain words, commonplace ideas, and straightforward syntax. (In this connection
it is noteworthy that in the revised versions of the essays Bacon seems to
have deliberately disrupted many of his earlier balanced effects to produce
a style that is actually more jagged and, in effect, more challenging to
the casual reader.) Furthermore, just as Bacon’s personal style and living habits were
prone to extravagance and never particularly austere, so in his writing he
was never quite able to resist the occasional grand word, magniloquent phrase,
or orotund effect. (As Dr. Johnson observed, “A dictionary of the English
language might be compiled from Bacon’s works alone.”) Bishop Sprat in his
1667 History of the Royal Society honored Bacon and praised the society
membership for supposedly eschewing fine words and fancy metaphors and adhering
instead to a natural lucidity and “mathematical plainness.” To write in such
a way, Sprat suggested, was to follow true, scientific, Baconian principles.
And while Bacon himself often expressed similar sentiments (praising blunt
expression while condemning the seductions of figurative language), a reader
would be hard pressed to find many examples of such spare technique in Bacon’s
own writings. Of Bacon’s contemporary readers, at least one took exception
to the view that his writing represented a perfect model of plain language
and transparent meaning. After perusing the New Organon, King James
(to whom Bacon had proudly dedicated the volume) reportedly pronounced the
work “like the peace of God, which passeth all understanding.”
The New Atlantis
As a work of narrative fiction, Bacon’s novel New Atlantis
may be classified as a literary rather than a scientific (or philosophical)
work, though it effectively belongs to both categories. According to Bacon’s
amanuensis and first biographer William Rawley, the novel represents the
first part (showing the design of a great college or institute devoted to
the interpretation of nature) of what was to have been a longer and more
detailed project (depicting the entire legal structure and political organization
of an ideal commonwealth). The work thus stands in the great tradition of
the utopian-philosophic novel that stretches from Plato and More to Huxley
and Skinner. The thin plot or fable is little more than a fictional shell to contain
the real meat of Bacon’s story: the elaborate description of Salomon’s House
(also known as the College of the Six Days Works), a centrally organized
research facility where specially trained teams of investigators collect
data, conduct experiments, and (most importantly from Bacon’s point of view)
apply the knowledge they gain to produce “things of use and practice for
man’s life.” These new arts and inventions they eventually share with the
outside world. In terms of its sci-fi adventure elements, the New Atlantis
is about as exciting as a government or university re-organization plan.
But in terms of its historical impact, the novel has proven to be nothing
less than revolutionary, having served not only as an effective inspiration
and model for the British Royal Society, but also as an early blueprint and
prophecy of the modern research center and international scientific community.
Scientific and Philosophical Works
It is never easy to summarize the thought of a prolific and wide-ranging
philosopher. Yet Bacon somewhat simplifies the task by his own helpful habits
of systematic classification and catchy mnemonic labeling. (Thus, for example,
there are three “distempers” – or diseases – of learning,” eleven errors
or “peccant humours,” four “Idols,” three primary mental faculties and categories
of knowledge, etc.) In effect, by following Bacon’s own methods it is possible
to produce a convenient outline or overview of his main scientific and philosophical
ideas.
The Great Instauration
As early as 1592, in a famous letter to his uncle, Lord Burghley,
Bacon declared “all knowledge” to be his province and vowed his personal
commitment to a plan for the full-scale rehabilitation and reorganization
of learning. In effect, he dedicated himself to a long-term project of intellectual
reform, and the balance of his career can be viewed as a continuing effort
to make good on that pledge. In 1620, while he was still at the peak of his
political success, he published the preliminary description and plan for
an enormous work that would fully answer to his earlier declared ambitions.
The work, dedicated to James, was to be called Magna Instauratio (i.e.,
the “grand edifice” or Great Instauration), and it would represent
a kind of summa or culmination of all Bacon’s thought on subjects
ranging from logic and epistemology to practical science (or what in Bacon’s
day was called “natural philosophy,” the word science being then but a general
synonym for “wisdom” or “learning”). Like several of Bacon’s projects, the Instauratio in its contemplated
form was never finished. Of the intended six parts, only the first two were
completed, while the other portions were only partly finished or barely begun.
Consequently, the work as we have it is less like the vast but well-sculpted
monument that Bacon envisioned than a kind of philosophical miscellany or
grab-bag. Part I of the project, De Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum
(“Nine Books of the Dignity and Advancement of Learning”), was published
in 1623. It is basically an enlarged version of the earlier Proficience
and Advancement of Learning, which Bacon had presented to James in 1605.
Part II, the Novum Organum (or “New Organon”) provides the author’s
detailed explanation and demonstration of the correct procedure for interpreting
nature. It first appeared in 1620. Together these two works present the essential
elements of Bacon’s philosophy, including most of the major ideas and principles
that we have come to associate with the terms “Baconian” and “Baconianism.”
In short, in Bacon’s view the distempers impede genuine intellectual progress by beguiling talented thinkers into fruitless, illusory, or purely self-serving ventures. What is needed – and this is a theme reiterated in all his later writings on learning and human progress – is a program to re-channel that same creative energy into socially useful new discoveries.
The Idea of Progress
Though it is hard to pinpoint the birth of an idea, for all intents
and purposes the modern idea of technological “progress” (in the sense of
a steady, cumulative, historical advance in applied scientific knowledge)
began with Bacon’s The Advancement of Learning and became fully articulated
in his later works. Knowledge is power, and when embodied in the form of new technical
inventions and mechanical discoveries it is the force that drives history
– this was Bacon’s key insight. In many respects this idea was his single
greatest invention, and it is all the more remarkable for its having been
conceived and promoted at a time when most English and European intellectuals
were either reverencing the literary and philosophical achievements of the
past or deploring the numerous signs of modern degradation and decline. Indeed,
while Bacon was preaching progress and declaring a brave new dawn of scientific
advance, many of his colleagues were persuaded that the world was at best
creaking along towards a state of senile immobility and eventual darkness.
“Our age is iron, and rusty too,” wrote John Donne, contemplating the signs
of universal decay in a poem published six years after Bacon’s Advancement. That history might in fact be progressive, i.e., an onward
and upward ascent – and not, as Aristotle had taught, merely cyclical or,
as cultural pessimists from Hesiod to Spengler have supposed, a descending
or retrograde movement, became for Bacon an article of secular faith which
he propounded with evangelical force and a sense of mission. In the Advancement,
the idea is offered tentatively, as a kind of hopeful hypothesis. But in
later works such as the New Organon, it becomes almost a promised
destiny: Enlightenment and a better world, Bacon insists, lie within our
power; they require only the cooperation of learned citizens and the active
development of the arts and sciences.
The Reclassification of Knowledge
In Book II of De Dignitate (his expanded version of the Advancement)
Bacon outlines his scheme for a new division of human knowledge into three
primary categories: History, Poesy, and Philosophy (which he associates respectively
with the three fundamental “faculties” of mind – memory, imagination, and
reason). Although the exact motive behind this reclassification remains unclear,
one of its main consequences seems unmistakable: it effectively promotes
philosophy – and especially Baconian science – above the other two branches
of knowledge, in essence defining history as the mere accumulation of brute
facts, while reducing art and imaginative literature to the even more marginal
status of “feigned history.” Evidently Bacon believed that in order for a genuine advancement
of learning to occur, the prestige of philosophy (and particularly natural
philosophy) had to be elevated, while that of history and literature (in
a word, humanism) needed to be reduced. Bacon’s scheme effectively accomplishes
this by making history (the domain of fact, i.e., of everything that has
happened) a virtual sub-species of philosophy (the domain of realistic
possibility, i.e., of everything that can theoretically or actually occur).
Meanwhile, poesy (the domain of everything that is imaginable or conceivable)
is set off to the side as a mere illustrative vehicle. In essence, it becomes
simply a means of recreating actual scenes or events from the past (as in
history plays or heroic poetry) or of allegorizing or dramatizing new ideas
or future possibilities (as in Bacon’s own interesting example of “parabolic
poesy,” the New Atlantis.)
Induction
At the beginning of the Magna Instauratio and in Book II of
the New Organon, Bacon introduces his system of “true and perfect
Induction,” which he proposes as the essential foundation of scientific method
and a necessary tool for the proper interpretation of nature. (This system
was to have been more fully explained and demonstrated in Part IV of the
Instauratio in a section titled “The Ladder of the Intellect,” but
unfortunately the work never got beyond an introduction.) According to Bacon, his system differs not only from the deductive
logic and mania for syllogisms of the Schoolmen, but also from the classic
induction of Aristotle and other logicians. As Bacon explains it, classic
induction proceeds “at once from . . . sense and particulars up to the most
general propositions” and then works backward (via deduction) to arrive at
intermediate propositions. Thus, for example, from a few observations one
might conclude (via induction) that “all new cars are shiny.” One would
then be entitled to proceed backward from this general axiom to deduce such
middle-level axioms as “all new Lexuses are shiny,” “all new Jeeps are shiny,”
etc. – axioms that presumably would not need to be verified empirically since
their truth would be logically guaranteed as long as the original generalization
(“all new cars are shiny”) is true. As Bacon rightly points out, one problem with this procedure is that
if the general axioms prove false, all the intermediate axioms may be false
as well. All it takes is one contradictory instance (in this case one new
car with a dull finish) and “the whole edifice tumbles.” For this reason
Bacon prescribes a different path. His method is to proceed “regularly and
gradually from one axiom to another, so that the most general are not reached
till the last.” In other words, each axiom – i.e., each step up “the ladder
of intellect” – is thoroughly tested by observation and experimentation before
the next step is taken. In effect, each confirmed axiom becomes a foothold
to a higher truth, with the most general axioms representing the last stage
of the process. Thus, in the example described, the Baconian investigator would be
obliged to examine a full inventory of new Chevrolets, Lexuses, Jeeps, etc.,
before reaching any conclusions about new cars in general. And while Bacon
admits that such a method can be laborious, he argues that it eventually
produces a stable edifice of knowledge instead of a rickety structure that
collapses with the appearance of a single disconfirming instance. (Indeed,
according to Bacon, when one follows his inductive procedure, a negative
instance actually becomes something to be welcomed rather than feared. For
instead of threatening an entire assembly, the discovery of a false generalization
actually saves the investigator the trouble of having to proceed further
in a particular direction or line of inquiry. Meanwhile the structure of
truth that he has already built remains intact.) Is Bacon’s system, then, a sound and reliable procedure, a strong
ladder leading from carefully observed particulars to true and “inevitable”
conclusions? Although he himself firmly believed in the utility and overall
superiority of his method, many of his commentators and critics have had
doubts. For one thing, it is not clear that the Baconian procedure, taken
by itself, leads conclusively to any general propositions, much less
to scientific principles or theoretical statements that we can accept as
universally true. For at what point is the Baconian investigator willing
to make the leap from observed particulars to abstract generalizations? After
a dozen instances? A thousand? The fact is, Bacon’s method provides nothing
to guide the investigator in this determination other than sheer instinct
or professional judgment, and thus the tendency is for the investigation
of particulars – the steady observation and collection of data – to go on
continuously, and in effect endlessly. One can thus easily imagine a scenario in which the piling up of instances
becomes not just the initial stage in a process, but the very essence of
the process itself; in effect, a zealous foraging after facts (in the New
Organon Bacon famously compares the ideal Baconian researcher to a busy
bee) becomes not only a means to knowledge, but an activity vigorously pursued
for its own sake. Every scientist and academic person knows how tempting
it is to put off the hard work of imaginative thinking in order to
continue doing some form of rote research. Every investigator knows how easy
it is to become wrapped up in data – with the unhappy result that one’s intended
ascent up the Baconian ladder gets stuck in mundane matters of fact and never
quite gets off the ground. It was no doubt considerations like these that prompted the English
physician (and neo-Aristotelian) William Harvey, of circulation-of-the-blood
fame, to quip that Bacon wrote of natural philosophy “like a Lord Chancellor”
– indeed like a politician or legislator rather than a practitioner. The
assessment is just to the extent that Bacon in the New Organon does
indeed prescribe a new and extremely rigid procedure for the investigation
of nature rather than describe the more or less instinctive and improvisational
– and by no means exclusively empirical – method that Kepler, Galileo, Harvey
himself, and other working scientists were actually employing. In fact, other
than Tycho Brahe, the Danish astronomer who, overseeing a team of assistants,
faithfully observed and then painstakingly recorded entire volumes of astronomical
data in tidy, systematically arranged tables, it is doubtful that there is
another major figure in the history of science who can be legitimately termed
an authentic, true-blooded Baconian. (Darwin, it is true, claimed that The
Origin of Species was based on “Baconian principles.” However, it is
one thing to collect instances in order to compare species and show a relationship
among them; it is quite another to theorize a mechanism, namely evolution
by mutation and natural selection, that elegantly and powerfully explains
their entire history and variety.) Science, that is to say, does not, and has probably never advanced
according to the strict, gradual, ever-plodding method of Baconian observation
and induction. It proceeds instead by unpredictable – and often intuitive
and even (though Bacon would cringe at the word) imaginative – leaps
and bounds. Kepler used Tycho’s scrupulously gathered data to support his
own heart-felt and even occult belief that the movements of celestial bodies
are regular and symmetrical, composing a true harmony of the spheres. Galileo
tossed unequal weights from the Leaning Tower as a mere public demonstration
of the fact (contrary to Aristotle) that they would fall at the same rate.
He had long before satisfied himself that this would happen via the very
un-Bacon-like method of mathematical reasoning and deductive thought-experiment.
Harvey, by a similar process of quantitative analysis and deductive logic,
knew that the blood must circulate, and it was only to provide proof
of this fact that he set himself the secondary task of amassing empirical
evidence and establishing the actual method by which it did so. One could enumerate – in true Baconian fashion – a host of further
instances. But the point is already made: advances in scientific knowledge
have not been achieved for the most part via Baconian induction (which amounts
to a kind of systematic and exhaustive survey of nature supposedly leading
to ultimate insights) but rather by shrewd hints and guesses – in a word
by hypotheses – that are then either corroborated or (in Karl Popper’s
important term) falsified by subsequent research. In summary, then, it can be said that Bacon underestimated the role
of imagination and hypothesis (and overestimated the value of minute observation
and bee-like data collection) in the production of new scientific knowledge.
And in this respect it is true that he wrote of science like a Lord Chancellor,
regally proclaiming the benefits of his own new and supposedly foolproof
technique instead of recognizing and adapting procedures that had already
been tested and approved. On the other hand, it must be added that Bacon
did not present himself (or his method) as the final authority on the investigation
of nature or, for that matter, on any other topic or issue relating to the
advance of knowledge. By his own admission, he was but the Buccinator,
or “trumpeter,” of such a revolutionary advance – not the founder or builder
of a vast new system, but only the herald or announcing messenger of a new
world to come.
Reputation and Cultural Legacy
If anyone deserves the title “universal genius” or “Renaissance man”
(accolades traditionally reserved for those who make significant, original
contributions to more than one professional discipline or area of learning),
Bacon clearly merits the designation. Like Leonardo and Goethe, he produced
important work in both the arts and sciences. Like Cicero, Marcus Aurelius,
Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, he combined wide and ample intellectual
and literary interests (from practical rhetoric and the study of nature to
moral philosophy and educational reform) with a substantial political career.
Like his near contemporary Machiavelli, he excelled in a variety of literary
genres – from learned treatises to light entertainments – though, also like
the great Florentine writer, he thought of himself mainly as a political
statesman and practical visionary: a man whose primary goal was less to obtain
literary laurels for himself than to mold the agendas and guide the policy
decisions of powerful nobles and heads of state. In our own era Bacon would be acclaimed as a “public intellectual,”
though his personal record of service and authorship would certainly dwarf
the achievements of most academic and political leaders today. Like nearly
all public figures, he was controversial. His chaplain and first biographer
William Rawley declared him “the glory of his age and nation” and portrayed
him as an angel of enlightenment and social vision. His admirers in the Royal
Society (an organization that traced its own inspiration and lineage to the
Lord Chancellor’s writings) viewed him as nothing less than the daring originator
of a new intellectual era. The poet Abraham Cowley called him a “Moses” and
portrayed him as an exalted leader who virtually all by himself had set learning
on a bold, firm, and entirely new path: Similarly adulatory if more prosaic assessments were offered by learned
contemporaries or near contemporaries from Descartes and Gassendi to Robert
Hooke and Robert Boyle. Leibniz was particularly generous and observed that,
compared to Bacon’s philosophical range and lofty vision, even a great genius
like Descartes “creeps on the ground.” On the other hand, Spinoza, another
close contemporary, dismissed Bacon’s work (especially his inductive theories)
completely and in effect denied that the supposedly grand philosophical revolution
decreed by Bacon, and welcomed by his partisans, had ever occurred. The response of the later Enlightenment was similarly divided, with
a majority of thinkers lavishly praising Bacon while a dissenting minority
castigated or even ridiculed him. The French encyclopedists Jean d’Alembert
and Denis Diderot sounded the keynote of this 18th-century re-assessment,
essentially hailing Bacon as a founding father of the modern era and emblazoning
his name on the front page of the Encyclopedia. In a similar gesture,
Kant dedicated his Critique of Pure Reason to Bacon and likewise saluted
him as an early architect of modernity. Hegel, on the other hand, took a
dimmer view. In his “Lectures on the History of Philosophy” he congratulated
Bacon on his worldly sophistication and shrewdness of mind, but ultimately
judged him to be a person of depraved character and a mere “coiner of mottoes.”
In his view, the Lord Chancellor was a decidedly low-minded (read typically
English and utilitarian) philosopher whose instruction was fit mainly for
“civil servants and shopkeepers.” Probably the fullest and most perceptive Enlightenment account of
Bacon’s achievement and place in history was Voltaire’s laudatory essay in
his Letters on the English. After referring to Bacon as the father
of experimental philosophy, he went on to assess his literary merits, judging
him to be an elegant, instructive, and witty writer, though too much given
to “fustian.” Bacon’s reputation and legacy remain controversial even today. While
no historian of science or philosophy doubts his immense importance both
as a proselytizer on behalf of the empirical method and as an advocate of
sweeping intellectual reform, opinion varies widely as to the actual social
value and moral significance of the ideas that he represented and effectively
bequeathed to us. The issue basically comes down to one’s estimate of or
sympathy for the entire Enlightenment/Utilitarian project. Those who for
the most part share Bacon’s view that nature exists mainly for human use
and benefit, and who furthermore endorse his opinion that scientific inquiry
should aim first and foremost at the amelioration of the human condition
and the “relief of man’s estate,” generally applaud him as a great social
visionary. On the other hand, those who view nature as an entity in its own
right, a higher-order estate of which the human community is only a part,
tend to perceive him as a kind of arch-villain – the evil originator of the
idea of science as the instrument of global imperialism and technological
conquest. On the one side, then, we have figures like the anthropologist and
science writer Loren Eiseley, who portrays Bacon (whom he calls “the man
who saw through time”) as a kind of Promethean culture hero. He praises Bacon
as the great inventor of the idea of science as both a communal enterprise
and a practical discipline in the service of humanity. On the other side,
we have writers, from Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Lewis Mumford to,
more recently, Jeremy Rifkin and eco-feminist Carolyn Merchant, who have
represented him as one of the main culprits behind what they perceive as
western science’s continuing legacy of alienation, exploitation, and ecological
oppression. Clearly somewhere in between this ardent Baconolotry on the one hand
and strident demonization of Bacon on the other lies the real Lord Chancellor:
a Colossus with feet of clay. He was by no means a great system-builder (indeed
his Magna Instauratio turned out to be less of a “grand edifice” than
a magnificent heap) but rather, as he more modestly portrayed himself, a
great spokesman for the reform of learning and a champion of modern science.
In the end we can say that he was one of the giant figures of intellectual
history – and as brilliant, and flawed, a philosopher as he was a statesman.
Bibliography
Note: The standard edition of Bacon’s Works and Letters and Life
is still that of James Spedding, et. al., (14 volumes, London, 1857- 1874),
also available in a facsimile reprint (Stuttgart, 1989). Adorno, Theodor and Max Horkheimer. The Dialectic of Enlightenment.
1944. Anderson, F. H. Francis Bacon: His Career and His Thought.
Los Angeles: University of Southern California Press, 1962. Bury, J.B. The Idea of Progress. London: MacMillan, 1920. Eiseley, Loren. The Man Who Saw Through Time. New York: Scribners,
1973. Fish, Stanley E. “The Experience of Bacon’s Essays.” In Self-Consuming
Artifacts. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1972. Gaukroger, Stephen. Francis Bacon and the Transformation of Early-modern
Philosophy. Cambridge, U.K. ; New York : Cambridge University Press,
2001. Merchant, Carolyn. The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the
Scientific Revolution. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980. Mumford, Lewis. Technics and Civilization. 1934. Lampert, Laurence. Nietzsche and Modern Times : A Study of Bacon,
Descartes, and Nietzsche. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1993. Rifkin, Jeremy. Biosphere Politics. New York: Crown, 1991. Rossi, Paolo. Francis Bacon: from Magic to Science. Trans.
Sacha Rabinovitch. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968. Vickers, Brian. Francis Bacon. Harlow, UK: Longman Group, 1978. Vickers, Brian, Ed. Francis Bacon. New York : Oxford University
Press, 1996. Whitney, Charles. Francis Bacon and Modernity. New Haven, CN:
Yale University Press, 1986.
David Simpson
Author Information:
Email: dsimpson@condor.depaul.edu