Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Quotation

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

Books

Please browse our Amazon list of titles about Francis Bacon. For rare and hard to find works we recommend our Alibris list of titles about Francis Bacon.

Research

COPAC UK: Francis Bacon
Library of Canada: Francis Bacon
Library of Congress: Francis Bacon
Other Library Catalogs: Francis Bacon

Biographical

English philosopher and statesman. Francis Bacon started out his professional life as a lawyer, and his philosophy of law was one of absolute duty to the Sovereign, but he is most well known as an advocate and defender of the scientific revolution. His philosophical works lay out a complex methodology for scientific inquiry which is often called the Baconian method.

He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, 1573-75, and in 1576 was admitted to Gray's Inn. He entered parliament in 1584, became one of the leading lawyers of England, and rose through various posts in the public service until he reached the Lord Chancellorship in 1618. The same year he was raised to the peerage as Baron Verulam, and three years later was made Viscount St. Albans. In 1621 he was charged with accepting bribes, and was tried and found guilty; his offices were taken from him, he was sentenced to a fine of £40,000, to imprisonment during the king's pleasure, and was disabled from sitting in parliament and coming within twelve miles of the court. Feeling his disgrace keenly, he went into retirement and devoted the remainder of his life to study and literary work. The parliamentary sentence, however, was not imposed, for the king (James I) practically remitted his fine and in 1622 he was allowed to come to London.

Bacon's Philosophy.

As philosopher and man of letters Bacon's fame is in bright contrast to his sad failure in public life. His philosophy is contained chiefly in the various parts and fragments of a work which he called Instauratio magna and which he left incomplete; the most important part is the Novum organum (published 1620). His philosophy is a method rather than a system; but the influence of this method in the development of British thought can hardly be overestimated. As Luther was the reformer of religion, so Bacon was the reformer of philosophy. Luther had claimed that the Scripture was to be interpreted by private judgment, not by authority. The problem of Bacon was to suggest a method of interpreting nature. The old method afforded no fruits. It "flies from the senses and particulars" to the most general laws, and then applies deduction. This is the "anticipation of nature." To it Bacon opposes the "interpretation of nature." Nature is to be interpreted, not by the use of the deductive syllogism, but by the induction of facts, by a gradual ascent from facts, through intermediate laws called "axioms," to the forms of nature. Before beginning this induction, the inquirer is to free his mind from certain false notions or tendencies which distort the truth. These are called "Idols" (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 Theater" (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. Nature is not to be interpreted by a search after final causes. "Nature to be commanded must be obeyed." Philosophy will then be fruitful. Faith is shown by works. Philosophy is to be known by fruits.

Ethics.

In the application of this method in the physical and moral world, Bacon himself accomplished but little. His system of morals, if system it may be called, is to be gathered from the seventh and eighth books of his De augmentis scientiarum (1623; a translation into Latin and expansion of an earlier English work; the Advancement of Learning, 1605), and from his Essays (first ed., 10 essays, 1597; ed. with 38 essays, 1612; final ed., 58 essays, 1625). Moral action means action of the human will. The will is governed by reason. Its spur is the passions. The moral object of the will is the good. Bacon, like the ancient moralists, failed to distinguish between the good and the right. He finds fault with the Greek and Roman thinkers for disputing about the chief good. It is a question of religion, not of ethics. His moral doctrine has reference exclusively to this world. Duty is only that which one owes to the community. Duty to God is an affair of religion. The cultivation of the will in the direction of the good is accomplished by the formation of a habit. For this Bacon lays down certain precepts. No general rules can be made for moral action under all circumstances. The characters of men differ as their bodies differ.

Relation Between Philosophy and Religion.

Bacon separates distinctly religion and philosophy. The one is not incompatible with the other; for "a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion." Bacon has been sometimes regarded as a defender of unbelief, because he opposed the search after final causes in the interpretation of nature. But it is one thing to discourage the search after final causes in science, it is another thing to deny the existence of final causes. "I had rather believe," he says, "all the fables in the Legend and the Talmud and the Alcoran than that this universal frame is without a mind" (Essay on Atheism). The object of scientific inquiry should be the "form," not the final cause.

While philosophy is not atheistic it does not inform religion. Tertullian, Pascal, and Bacon agree in proclaiming the separation of the two domains. Tertullian and Pascal do it to save religion from rationalism; Bacon does it to save philosophy from the "Idols." Credo quia absurdum is expressed in the following words: "But that faith which was accounted to Abraham for righteousness was of such a nature that Sarah laughed at it, who therein was an image of natural reason. The more discordant, therefore, and incredible, the divine mystery is, the more honor is shown to God in believing it, and the nobler is the victory of faith" (De augmentis, bk. ix).

Religion comes, therefore, not from the light of nature, but from that of revelation. "First he breathed light upon the face of the matter, or chaos, then he breathed light into the face of man, and still he breatheth and inspireth light into the face of his chosen" (Essay on Truth). One may employ reason to separate revealed from natural truth, and to draw inferences from the former; but we must not go to excess by inquiring too curiously into divine mysteries, nor attach the same authority to inferences as to principles. If Bacon was an atheist, as some claim, his writings are certainly not atheistic. His the inductive method has given natural theology the facts which point most significantly to God. [This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License and uses material adapted in whole or in part from the Wikipedia article on Francis (1561) Bacon.]



Books from Alibris: Francis Bacon