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
philosophical 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.
1. Life and Political Career
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:
* 1604 – Appointed King's Counsel.
* 1607 – Named Solicitor General.
* 1608 – Appointed Clerk of the Star Chamber.
* 1613 – Appointed Attorney General.
* 1616 – Made a member of the Privy Council.
* 1617 – Appointed Lord Keeper of the Royal Seal (his father's
former office).
* 1618 – Made Lord Chancellor.
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.
2. 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:
* Two substantial volumes of history and biography, The History of
the Reign of King Henry the Seventh and The History of the Reign of
King Henry the Eighth.
* De Augmentis Scientiarum (an expanded Latin version of his
earlier Advancement of Learning).
* The final 1625 edition of his Essayes, or Counsels.
* The remarkable Sylva Sylvarum, or A Natural History in Ten
Centuries (a curious hodge-podge of scientific experiments, personal
observations, speculations, ancient teachings, and analytical
discussions on topics ranging from the causes of hiccups to
explanations for the shortage of rain in Egypt). Artificially divided
into ten "centuries" (that is, ten chapters, each consisting of one
hundred items), the work was apparently intended to be included in
Part Three of the Magna Instauratio.
* His utopian science-fiction novel The New Atlantis, which was
published in unfinished form a year after his death.
* Various parts of his unfinished magnum opus Magna Instauratio
(or Great Instauration), including a "Natural History of Winds" and a
"Natural History of Life and Death."
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.
a. 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."
b. 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-philosophical
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.
c. 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.
d. 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 (that is, 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."
e. The Advancement of Learning
Relatively early in his career Bacon judged that, owing mainly to an
undue reverence for the past (as well as to an excessive absorption in
cultural vanities and frivolities), the intellectual life of Europe
had reached a kind of impasse or standstill. Yet he believed there was
a way beyond this stagnation if persons of learning, armed with new
methods and insights, would simply open their eyes and minds to the
world around them. This at any rate was the basic argument of his
seminal 1605 treatise The Proficience and Advancement of Learning,
arguably the first important philosophical work to be published in
English.
It is in this work that Bacon sketched out the main themes and ideas
that he continued to refine and develop throughout his career,
beginning with the notion that there are clear obstacles to or
diseases of learning that must be avoided or purged before further
progress is possible.
f. The "Distempers" of Learning
"There be therefore chiefly three vanities in studies, whereby
learning hath been most traduced." Thus Bacon, in the first book of
the Advancement. He goes on to refer to these vanities as the three
"distempers" of learning and identifies them (in his
characteristically memorable fashion) as "fantastical learning,"
"contentious learning," and "delicate learning" (alternatively
identified as "vain imaginations," "vain altercations," and "vain
affectations").
By fantastical learning ("vain imaginations") Bacon had in mind what
we would today call pseudo-science: i.e., a collection of ideas that
lack any real or substantial foundation, that are professed mainly by
occultists and charlatans, that are carefully shielded from outside
criticism, and that are offered largely to an audience of credulous
true believers. In Bacon's day such "imaginative science" was familiar
in the form of astrology, natural magic, and alchemy.
By contentious learning ("vain altercations") Bacon was referring
mainly to Aristotelian philosophy and theology and especially to the
Scholastic tradition of logical hair-splitting and metaphysical
quibbling. But the phrase applies to any intellectual endeavor in
which the principal aim is not new knowledge or deeper understanding
but endless debate cherished for its own sake.
Delicate learning ("vain affectations") was Bacon's label for the new
humanism insofar as (in his view) it seemed concerned not with the
actual recovery of ancient texts or the retrieval of past knowledge
but merely with the revival of Ciceronian rhetorical embellishments
and the reproduction of classical prose style. Such preoccupation with
"words more than matter," with "choiceness of phrase" and the "sweet
falling of clauses" – in short, with style over substance – seemed to
Bacon (a careful stylist in his own right) the most seductive and
decadent literary vice of his age.
Here we may note that from Bacon's point of view the "distempers" of
learning share two main faults:
1. Prodigal ingenuity – i.e., each distemper represents a lavish
and regrettable waste of talent, as inventive minds that might be
employed in more productive pursuits exhaust their energy on trivial
or puerile enterprises instead.
2. Sterile results – i.e., instead of contributing to the discovery
of new knowledge (and thus to a practical "advancement of learning"
and eventually to a better life for all), the distempers of learning
are essentially exercises in personal vainglory that aim at little
more than idle theorizing or the preservation of older forms of
knowledge.
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.
g. 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.
h. 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.)
i. The New Organon
To the second part of his Great Instauration Bacon gave the title New
Organon (or "True Directions concerning the Interpretation of
Nature"). The Greek word organon means "instrument" or "tool," and
Bacon clearly felt he was supplying a new instrument for guiding and
correcting the mind in its quest for a true understanding of nature.
The title also glances at Aristotle's Organon (a collection that
includes his Categories and his Prior and Posterior Analytics) and
thus suggests a "new instrument" destined to transcend or replace the
older, no longer serviceable one. (This notion of surpassing ancient
authority is aptly illustrated on the frontispiece of the 1620 volume
containing the New Organon by a ship boldly sailing beyond the
mythical pillars of Hercules, which supposedly marked the end of the
known world.)
The New Organon is presented not in the form of a treatise or
methodical demonstration but as a series of aphorisms, a technique
that Bacon came to favor as less legislative and dogmatic and more in
the true spirit of scientific experiment and critical inquiry.
Combined with his gift for illustrative metaphor and symbol, the
aphoristic style makes the New Organon in many places the most
readable and literary of all Bacon's scientific and philosophical
works.
j. The Idols
In Book I of the New Organon (Aphorisms 39-68), Bacon introduces his
famous doctrine of the "idols." These are characteristic errors,
natural tendencies, or defects that beset the mind and prevent it from
achieving a full and accurate understanding of nature. Bacon points
out that recognizing and counteracting the idols is as important to
the study of nature as the recognition and refutation of bad arguments
is to logic. Incidentally, he uses the word "idol" – from the Greek
eidolon ("image" or "phantom") – not in the sense of a false god or
heathen deity but rather in the sense employed in Epicurean physics.
Thus a Baconian idol is a potential deception or source of
misunderstanding, especially one that clouds or confuses our knowledge
of external reality.
Bacon identifies four different classes of idol. Each arises from a
different source, and each presents its own special hazards and
difficulties.
1. The Idols of the Tribe.
These are the natural weaknesses and tendencies common to human
nature. Because they are innate, they cannot be completely eliminated,
but only recognized and compensated for. Some of Bacon's examples are:
* Our senses – which are inherently dull and easily deceivable.
(Which is why Bacon prescribes instruments and strict investigative
methods to correct them.)
* Our tendency to discern (or even impose) more order in phenomena
than is actually there. As Bacon points out, we are apt to find
similitude where there is actually singularity, regularity where there
is actually randomness, etc.
* Our tendency towards "wishful thinking." According to Bacon, we
have a natural inclination to accept, believe, and even prove what we
would prefer to be true.
* Our tendency to rush to conclusions and make premature judgments
(instead of gradually and painstakingly accumulating evidence).
2. The Idols of the Cave.
Unlike the idols of the tribe, which are common to all human beings,
those of the cave vary from individual to individual. They arise, that
is to say, not from nature but from culture and thus reflect the
peculiar distortions, prejudices, and beliefs that we are all subject
to owing to our different family backgrounds, childhood experiences,
education, training, gender, religion, social class, etc. Examples
include:
* Special allegiance to a particular discipline or theory.
* High esteem for a few select authorities.
* A "cookie-cutter" mentality – that is, a tendency to reduce or
confine phenomena within the terms of our own narrow training or
discipline.
3. The Idols of the Market Place.
These are hindrances to clear thinking that arise, Bacon says, from
the "intercourse and association of men with each other." The main
culprit here is language, though not just common speech, but also (and
perhaps particularly) the special discourses, vocabularies, and
jargons of various academic communities and disciplines. He points out
that "the idols imposed by words on the understanding are of two
kinds": "they are either names of things that do not exist" (e.g., the
crystalline spheres of Aristotelian cosmology) or faulty, vague, or
misleading names for things that do exist (according to Bacon,
abstract qualities and value terms – e.g., "moist," "useful," etc. –
can be a particular source of confusion).
4. The Idols of the Theatre.
Like the idols of the cave, those of the theatre are culturally
acquired rather than innate. And although the metaphor of a theatre
suggests an artificial imitation of truth, as in drama or fiction,
Bacon makes it clear that these idols derive mainly from grand schemes
or systems of philosophy – and especially from three particular types
of philosophy:
* Sophistical Philosophy – that is, philosophical systems based
only on a few casually observed instances (or on no experimental
evidence at all) and thus constructed mainly out of abstract argument
and speculation. Bacon cites Scholasticism as a conspicuous example.
* Empirical Philosophy – that is, a philosophical system
ultimately based on a single key insight (or on a very narrow base of
research), which is then erected into a model or paradigm to explain
phenomena of all kinds. Bacon cites the example of William Gilbert,
whose experiments with the lodestone persuaded him that magnetism
operated as the hidden force behind virtually all earthly phenomena.
* Superstitious Philosophy – this is Bacon's phrase for any system
of thought that mixes theology and philosophy. He cites Pythagoras and
Plato as guilty of this practice, but also points his finger at pious
contemporary efforts, similar to those of Creationists today, to found
systems of natural philosophy on Genesis or the book of Job.
k. 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.
3. 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:
Bacon at last, a mighty Man, arose
Whom a wise King and Nature chose
Lord Chancellour of both their Lawes. . . .
The barren Wilderness he past,
Did on the very Border stand
Of the great promis'd Land,
And from the Mountains Top of his Exalted Wit,
Saw it himself and shew'd us it. . . .
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.
4. References and Further Reading
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.
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