BACON, AND THE RISE OF THE NEW PHILOSOPHY.
Birth and Early Life. Treatment of Essex. His Appointments. His Fall.
Writes Philosophy. Magna Instauratio. His Defects. His Fame. His
Essays.
BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE OF BACON.
Contemporary with Shakspeare, and almost equal to him in English fame at
least, is Francis Bacon, the founder of the system of experimental
philosophy in the Elizabethan age. The investigations of the one in the
philosophy of human life, were emulated by those of the other in the realm
of general nature, in order to find laws to govern further progress, and
to evolve order and harmony out of chaos.
Bacon was born in London, on the 22d of January, 1560-61, to an enviable
social lot. His father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, was for twenty years lord
keeper of the great seal, and was eulogized by George Buchanan as "Diu
Britannici regni secundum columen." His mother was Anne Cook, a person of
remarkable acquirements in language and theology. Francis Bacon was a
delicate, attractive, and precocious child, noticed by the great, and
kindly called by the queen "her little lord keeper." Ben Jonson refers to
this when he writes, at a later day:
England's high chancellor, the destined heir
In his soft cradle to his father's chair.
Thus, in his early childhood, he became accustomed to the forms and
grandeur of political power, and the modes by which it was to be striven
for.
In his thirteenth year he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, then,
as now, the more mathematical and scientific of the two universities. But,
like Gibbon at Oxford, he thought little of his alma mater, under whose
care he remained only three years. It is said that at an early age he
disliked the Logic of Aristotle, and began to excogitate his system of
Induction: not content with the formal recorded knowledge, he viewed the
universe as a great storehouse of facts to be educed, investigated, and
philosophically classified.
After leaving the university, he went in the suite of Sir Amyas Paulet,
the English ambassador, to France; and recorded the observations made
during his travels in a treatise _On the State of Europe_, which is
thoughtful beyond his years. The sudden death of his father, in February,
1579-80, recalled him to England, and his desire to study led him to apply
to the government for a sinecure, which would permit him to do so without
concern as to his support. It is not strange--considering his youth and
the entire ignorance of the government as to his abilities--that this was
refused. He then applied himself to the study of the law; and whatever his
real ability, the jealousy of the Cecils no doubt prompted the opinion of
the queen, that he was not very profound in the branch he had chosen, an
opinion which was fully shared by the blunt and outspoken Lord Coke, who
was his rival in love, law, and preferment. Prompted no doubt by the
coldness of Burleigh, he joined the opposition headed by the Earl of
Essex, and he found in that nobleman a powerful friend and generous
patron, who used his utmost endeavors to have Bacon appointed
attorney-general, but without success. To compensate Bacon for his
failure, Essex presented him with a beautiful villa at Twickenham on the
Thames, which was worth £2,000.
TREATMENT OF ESSEX.--Essex was of a bold, eccentric, and violent temper.
It is not to the credit of Bacon that when Essex, through his rashness and
eccentricities, found himself arraigned for treason, Bacon deserted him,
and did not simply stand aloof, but was the chief agent in his
prosecution. Nor is this all: after making a vehement and effective speech
against him, as counsel for the prosecution--a speech which led to his
conviction and execution--Bacon wrote an uncalled-for and malignant paper,
entitled "A Declaration of the Treasons of Robert, Earl of Essex."
A high-minded man would have aided his friend; a cautious man would have
remained neutral; but Bacon was extravagant, fond of show, eager for
money, and in debt: he sought only to push his own fortunes, without
regard to justice or gratitude, and he saw that he had everything to gain
from his servility to the queen, and nothing from standing by his friend.
Even those who thought Essex justly punished, regarded Bacon with aversion
and contempt, and impartial history has not reversed their opinion.
HIS APPOINTMENTS.--He strove for place, and he obtained it. In 1590 he was
appointed counsel extraordinary to the queen: such was his first reward
for this conduct, and such his first lesson in the school where thrift
followed fawning. In 1593 he was brought into parliament for Middlesex,
and there he charmed all hearers by his eloquence, which has received the
special eulogy of Ben Jonson. In his parliamentary career is found a
second instance of his truckling to power: in a speech touching the rights
of the crown, he offended the queen and her ministers; and as soon as he
found they resented it, he made a servile and unqualified apology.
At this time he began to write his _Essays_, which will be referred to
hereafter, and published two treatises, one on _The Common Law_, and one
on _The Alienation Office_.
In 1603 he was, by his own seeking, among the crowd of gentlemen knighted
by James I. on his accession; and in 1604 he added fortune to his new
dignity by marrying Alice Barnham, "a handsome maiden," the daughter of a
London alderman. He had before addressed the dowager Lady Hatton, who had
refused him and bestowed her hand upon his rival, Coke.
In 1613 he attained to the long-desired dignity of attorney-general, a
post which he filled with power and energy, but which he disgraced by the
torture of Peacham, an old clergyman, who was charged with having written
treason in a sermon which he never preached nor published. As nothing
could be extorted from him by the rack, Bacon informed the king that
Peacham "had a dumb devil." It should be some palliation of this deed,
however, that the government was quick and sharp in ferretting out
treason, and that torture was still authorized.
In 1616 he was sworn of the privy council, and in the next year inherited
his father's honors, being made lord keeper of the seal, principally
through the favor of the favorite Buckingham. His course was still upward:
in 1618 he was made lord high chancellor, and Baron Verulam, and the next
year he was created Viscount St. Albans. Such rapid and high promotion
marked his great powers, but it belonged to the period of despotism. James
had been ruling without a parliament. At length the necessities of the
government caused the king to summon a parliament, and the struggle began
which was to have a fatal issue twenty-five years later. Parliament met,
began to assert popular rights, and to examine into the conduct of
ministers and high officials; and among those who could ill bear such
scrutiny, Bacon was prominent.
HIS FALL.--The charges against him were varied and numerous, and easy of
proof. He had received bribes; he had given false judgments for money; he
had perverted justice to secure the smiles of Buckingham, the favorite;
and when a commission was appointed to examine these charges he was
convicted. With abject humility, he acknowledged his guilt, and implored
the pity of his judges. The annals of biography present no sorrier picture
than this. "Upon advised consideration of the charges," he wrote,
"descending into my own conscience, and calling my memory to account so
far as I am able, I do plainly and ingenuously confess that I am guilty of
corruption, and do renounce all defence. O my lords, spare a broken reed!"
It is useless for his defenders, among whom the chief are Mr. Basil
Montagu and Mr. Hepworth Dixon, to inform us that judges in that day were
ill paid, and that it was the custom to receive gifts. If Bacon had a
defence to make and did not make it, he was a coward or a sycophant: if
what he said is true, he was a dishonest man, an unjust judge. He was
sentenced to pay a fine of £40,000, and to be imprisoned in the Tower at
the king's pleasure; the fine was remitted, and the imprisonment lasted
but two days, a result, no doubt foreseen, of his wretched confession.
This was the end of his public career. In retirement, with a pension of
£1,200, making, with his other means, an annual income of £2,500, this
"meanest of mankind" set himself busily to work to prove to the world that
he could also be the "wisest and brightest;"[33] a duality of fame
approached by others, but never equalled. He was, in fact, two men in one:
a dishonest, truckling politician, and a large-minded and truth-seeking
philosopher.
BEGINS HIS PHILOSOPHY.--Retired in disgrace from his places at court, the
rest of his life was spent in developing his _Instauratio Magna_, that
revolution in the very principles and institutes of science--that
philosophy which, in the words of Macaulay, "began in observations, and
ended in arts." A few words will suffice to close his personal history.
While riding in his coach, he was struck with the idea that snow would
arrest animal putrefaction. He alighted, bought a fowl, and stuffed it
with snow, with his own hands. He caught cold, stopped at the Earl of
Arundel's mansion, and slept in damp sheets; fever intervened, and on
Easter Day, 1626, he died, leaving his great work unfinished, but in such
condition that the plan has been sketched for the use of the philosophers
who came after him.
He is said to have made the first sketch of the _Instauratio_ when he was
twenty-six years old, but it was much modified in later years. He fondly
called it also _Temporis Partus Maximus_, the greatest birth of Time.
After that he wrote his _Advancement of Learning in 1605_, which was to
appear in his developed scheme, under the title _De Augmentis
Scientiarum_, written in 1623. His work advanced with and was modified by
his investigations.
In 1620 he wrote the _Novum Organum_, which, when it first appeared,
called forth from James I. the profane _bon mot_ that it was like the
peace of God, "because it passeth all understanding." Thus he was
preparing the component parts, and fitting them into his system, which has
at length become quite intelligible. A clear notion of what he proposed to
himself and what he accomplished, may be found in the subjoined meagre
sketch, only designed to indicate the outline of that system, which it
will require long and patient study to master thoroughly.
THE GREAT RESTORATION, (MAGNA INSTAURATIO.)--He divided it into six parts,
bearing a logical relation to each other, and arranged in the proper order
of study.
I. Survey and extension of the sciences, (_De Augmentis Scientiarum_.)
"Gives the substance or general description of the knowledge which mankind
_at present possesses_." That is, let it be observed, not according to the
received system and divisions, but according to his own. It is a new
presentation of the existent state of knowledge, comprehending "not only
the things already invented and known, but also those omitted and wanted,"
for he says the intellectual globe, as well as the terrestrial, has its
broils and deceits.
In the branch "_De Partitione Scientiarum_," he divides all human learning
into _History_, which uses the memory; _Poetry_, which employs the
imagination; and _Philosophy_, which requires the reason: divisions too
vague and too few, and so overlapping each other as to be of little
present use. Later classifications into numerous divisions have been
necessary to the progress of scientific research.
II. Precepts for the interpretation of nature, (_Novum Organum_.) This
sets forth "the doctrine of a more perfect use of the reason, and the true
helps of the intellectual faculties, so as to raise and enlarge the powers
of the mind." "A kind of logic, by us called," he says, "the art of
interpreting nature: differing from the common logic ... in three things,
the end, the order of demonstrating, and the grounds of inquiry."
Here he discusses induction; opposes the syllogism; shows the value and
the faults of the senses--as they fail us, or deceive us--and presents in
his _idola_ the various modes and forms of deception. These _idola_, which
he calls the deepest fallacies of the human mind, are divided into four
classes: Idola Tribus, Idola Specus, Idola Fori, Idola Theatri. The first
are the errors belonging to the whole human race, or _tribe_; the
second--_of the den_--are the peculiarities of individuals; the third--_of
the market-place_--are social and conventional errors; and the
fourth--_those of the theatre_--include Partisanship, Fashion, and
Authority.
III. Phenomena of the Universe, or Natural and Experimental History, on
which to found Philosophy, (_Sylva Sylvarum_.) "Our natural history is
not designed," he says, "so much to please by vanity, or benefit by
gainful experiments, as to afford light to the discovery of causes, and
hold out the breasts of philosophy." This includes his patient search for
facts--nature _free_, as in the history of plants, minerals, animals,
etc.--nature _put to the torture_, as in the productions of art and human
industry.
IV. Ladder of the Understanding, (_Scala Intellectûs_.) "Not illustrations
of rules and precepts, but perfect models, which will exemplify the second
part of this work, and represent to the eye the whole progress of the
mind, and the continued structure and order of invention, in the most
chosen subjects, after the same manner as globes and machines facilitate
the more abstruse and subtle demonstrations in mathematics."
V. Precursors or anticipations of the second philosophy, (_Prodromi sive
anticipationes philosophiæ secundæ_.) "These will consist of such things
as we have invented, experienced, or added by the same common use of the
understanding that others employ"--a sort of scaffolding, only of use till
the rest are finished--a set of suggestive helps to the attainment of this
second philosophy, which is the goal and completion of his system.
VI. Second Philosophy, or Active Science, (_Philosophia Secunda_.) "To
this all the rest are subservient--_to lay down that philosophy_ which
shall flow from the just, pure, and strict inquiry hitherto proposed." "To
perfect this is beyond both our abilities and our hopes; yet we shall lay
the foundations of it, and recommend the superstructure to posterity."
An examination of this scheme will show a logical procession from the
existing knowledge, and from existing defects, by right rules of reason,
and the avoidance of deceptions, with a just scale of perfected models, to
the _second philosophy_, or science in useful practical action, diffusing
light and comfort throughout the world.
In a philosophic instead of a literary work, these heads would require
great expansion in order adequately to illustrate the scheme in its six
parts. This, however, would be entirely out of our province, which is to
present a brief outline of the works of a man who occupies a prominent
place in the intellectual realm of England, as a profound philosopher, and
as a writer of English prose; only as one might introduce a great man in a
crowd: those who wish to know the extent and character of his greatness
must study his works.
They were most of them written in Latin, but they have been ably
translated and annotated, and are within the ready reach and comprehension
of students. The best edition in English, is that by Spedding, Ellis, and
Heath, which has been republished in America.
BACON'S DEFECTS.--Further than this tabular outline, neither our space nor
the scope of our work will warrant us in going; but it is important to
consider briefly the elements of Bacon's remarkable fame. His system and
his knowledge are superseded entirely. Those who have studied physics and
chemistry at the present day, know a thousand-fold more than Bacon could;
for such knowledge did not exist in his day. But he was one of those--and
the chief one--who, in that age of what is called the childhood of
experimental philosophy, helped to clear away the mists of error, and
prepare for the present sunshine of truth. "I have been laboring," says
some writer, (quoted by Bishop Whately, Pref. to Essay XIV.,) "to render
myself useless." Such was Bacon's task, and such the task of the greatest
inventors, discoverers, and benefactors of the human race.
Nor did Bacon rank high even as a natural philosopher or physicist in his
own age: he seems to have refused credence to the discoveries of
Copernicus and Galileo, which had stirred the scientific world into great
activity before his day; and his investigations in botany and vegetable
physiology are crude and full of errors.
His mind, eminently philosophic, searched for facts only to establish
principles and discover laws; and he was often impatient or obstinate in
this search, feeling that it trammelled him in his haste to reach
conclusions.
In the consideration of the reason, he unduly despised the _Organon_ of
Aristotle, which, after much indignity and misapprehension, still remains
to elucidate the universal principle of reasoning, and published his new
organon--_Novum Organum_--as a sort of substitute for it: Induction
unjustly opposed to the Syllogism. In what, then, consists that wonderful
excellence, that master-power which has made his name illustrious?
HIS FAME.--I. He labored earnestly to introduce, in the place of fanciful
and conjectural systems--careful, patient investigation: the principle of
the procurement of well-known facts, in order that, by severe induction,
philosophy might attain to general laws, and to a classification of the
sciences. The fault of the ages before him had been hasty, careless, often
neglected observation, inaccurate analysis, the want of patient successive
experiment. His great motto was experiment, and again and again
experiment; and the excellent maxims which he laid down for the proper
conduct of experimental philosophy have outlived his own facts and system
and peculiar beliefs. Thus he has fitly been compared to Moses. He led
men, marshalled in strong array, to the vantage ground from which he
showed them the land of promise, and the way to enter it; while he
himself, after all his labors, was not permitted to enjoy it. Such men
deserve the highest fame; and thus the most practical philosophers of
to-day revere the memory of him who showed them from the mountain-top,
albeit in dim vision, the land which they now occupy.
II. Again, Bacon is the most notable example among natural philosophers of
a man who worked for science and truth alone, with a singleness of purpose
and entire unconcern as to immediate and selfish rewards. Bacon the
philosopher was in the strongest contrast to Bacon the politician. He
left, he said, his labors to posterity; his name and memory to foreign
nations, and "to (his) own country, after some time is past over." His own
time could neither appreciate nor reward them. Here is an element of
greatness worthy of all imitation: he who works for popular applause, may
have his reward, but it is fleeting and unsatisfying; he who works for
truth alone, has a grand inner consequence while he works, and his name
will be honored, if for nothing else, for this loyalty to truth. After
what has been said of his servility and dishonesty, it is pleasing to
contemplate this unsullied side of his escutcheon, and to give a better
significance to the motto on his monument--_Sic sedebat_.
HIS ESSAYS.--Bacon's _Essays_, or _Counsels Civil and Moral_, are as
intelligible to the common mind as his philosophy is dry and difficult.
They are short, pithy, sententious, telling us plain truths in simple
language: he had been writing them through several years. He dedicated
them, under the title of _Essays_, to Henry, Prince of Wales, the eldest
son of King James I., a prince of rare gifts, and worthy such a
dedication, who unfortunately died in 1612. They show him to be the
greatest master of English prose in his day, and to have had a deep
insight into human nature.
Bacon is said to have been the first person who applied the word _essay_
in English to such writings: it meant, as the French word shows, a little
trial-sketch, a suggestion, a few loose thoughts--a brief of something to
be filled in by the reader. Now it means something far more--a long
composition, dissertation, disquisition. The subjects of the essays, which
number sixty-eight, are such as are of universal interest--fame, studies,
atheism, beauty, ambition, death, empire, sedition, honor, adversity, and
suchlike.
The Essays have been ably edited and annotated by Archbishop Whately, and
his work has been republished in America.