Francis Bacon

1561-1626

British Philosopher and Lawyer

Francis Bacon's position in the history of science is still debated. To some he was the first spokesman for the new science of the modern era. Yet to others Bacon was an unoriginal philosopher who stated a false formula for science. He urged the rejection of ancient knowledge in favor of observation and experiment. His proposed method of induction stressed the role of impartial observation of the particular in order to make general rules of nature. Bacon also had a troubled political career, which was shaped by the whims of royal favor, noble patronage, and the complex politics of his era.

Francis was the fifth son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Queen Elizabeth I's Lord Keeper of the Great Seal (a high governmental post). At the age of 12 Bacon studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, and developed his dislike of the standard academic philosophy of his day. He described his teachers as "men of sharp wits, shut up in their cells of a few authors, chiefly Aristotle, their Dictator."

In 1575 he moved to Gray's Inn, a law school that catered to the extravagant and wild lifestyles of the young nobility as well as the academic interests of the studious. Bacon was 18 when his father died, leaving him with little money. He then began to seriously study law in order to make his living, and through his talent and family connections began a career in politics, gaining a seat in parliament when he was 23.

His career suffered from competition with his relatives, especially the powerful Cecil family. The elder Cecil, Lord Burghley, quite naturally preferred to advance his son's career over Bacon's. Bacon turned to the Cecils' rival, the Earl of Essex, to promote his career. However, when Essex was involved in a plot to kidnap the Queen, Bacon had no qualms in helping to prosecute his former patron.

In 1603 James I succeeded to the English throne and Bacon's career then advanced apace. In 1617 he became the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, the same office his father had held. He was made Lord Chancellor and created Baron in 1618, and finally given the title Viscount St. Albans in 1621. However, that year he was accused and found guilty of bribery. His public career ruined, he retired to his estate to devote his remaining years to his writings.

Bacon had already developed a literary reputation. He had penned a number of masques for Royal entertainment. In 1597 he had published a collection of essays on various topics, from gardening to the nature of good and evil. In 1605 he published The Advancement of Learning, a new categorization of the whole of the natural sciences. He continued this theme with the Novum Organum (1620), which outlined a new method of natural philosophy to replace Aristotle (384-322 B.C.).

Bacon proposed that, through his method of induction, the secrets of the universe could be unlocked and used to benefit society. His method involved the unbiased, almost random, collection of data, which would later be generalized into rules of nature. Bacon's method never became popular, but many of his other ideas proved influential. In the New Atlantis (1626), he described an imaginary society of scientists, which had a profound effect on many of those who founded the British Royal Society.

His death resulted from a misadventure many see as typical of Bacon's concept of science. Bacon had a sudden impulse to see whether snow would help preserve meat, and so he stopped his carriage, acquired a hen, and buried it in the snow. However, he caught a sudden chill, from which he died shortly after.