Bacon Francis (1561 - 1626)
Francis Bacon was born into a position of great privilege, the sixth son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Keeper of the Great Seal for Elizabeth I. He studied to become a lawyer at Gray's Inn from 1579 to 1582, and it was soon apparent that he had a brilliant legal mind. Yet he remained unpopular with Elizabeth, and it was only on the accession of James I in 1603 that his career started to move in the right direction. Knighted that year, he was appointed to a succession of posts which, like his father, culminated in the Keeper of the Great Seal. For all these achievements, however, he was most interested in the search for scientific truth. Much of Tudor science was based on the work of Aristotle, who had died almost two thousand years earlier, in 322 BC. While many Aristotelian ideas, such as the position of the earth at the centre of the universe, had been overturned, his methodology was still being used. This held that scientific truth could be reached by way of authoritative argument: if sufficiently clever men discussed a subject long enough, the truth would eventually be discovered. Bacon objected, arguing that truth required evidence from the real world and parodying these 'authorities' as spiders who span webs from their own substance. He went about setting out new ways to accumulate evidence, promoting the 'Scientific Method' of testing a theory by a controlled experiment: 'Whether or no anything can be known, can be settled not by arguing, but by trying'. He published his ideas, initially in 'Novum Organum', an account of the correct method of acquiring natural knowledge. Bacon believed this to be his most important contribution and it is this body of ideas with which his name is most closely associated. Bacon's political ascent also continued: in 1618 he was appointed Lord Chancellor, the most powerful position in England, and in 1621 he was created Viscount St Albans. Just five days later, however, he crashed down to earth amid accusations of bribery. The House of Lords fined him 40,000 and banished him from court. Although the King later repealed both the fine and the sentence, this marked the end of his public life. He retired to his home at Gorhambury to concentrate on his writing, with some suggesting that this included plays attributed to William Shakespeare. His passion for scientific discovery lasted. One cold day in early April 1626, Bacon was travelling through Highgate when he was seized by a sudden scientific impulse. In order to discover whether meat could be preserved in a cold environment, he bought a chicken and stuffed it with snow. What happened remains unclear: he was suddenly taken ill and was taken to Lord Arundel's house nearby, where he died a few days later.
OF TRUTH (Essays, 1601) What is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be, that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting. And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits, which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them, as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labor, which men take in finding out of truth, nor again, that when it is found, it imposeth upon men's thoughts, that doth bring lies in favor; but a natural though corrupt love, of the lie itself. One of the later school of the Grecians, examineth the matter, and is at a stand, to think what should be in it, that men should love lies; where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets, nor for advantage, as the with merchant; but for the lie's sake. But I cannot tell; this same truth, is a naked, and open day-light, that doth not show the masks, and mummeries, and triumphs, of the world, half so stately and daintily as candlelights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond, or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men's minds, vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds, of a number of men, poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves? One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy vinum doemonum, because it filleth the imagination; and yet, it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in, and settleth in it, that doth the hurt; such as we spake of before. But, howsoever these things are thus in men's depraved judgments, and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making, or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the sense; the last, was the light of reason; and his sabbath work ever since, is the illumination of his Spirit. 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. The poet, that beautified the sect, that was otherwise inferior to the rest, saith yet excellently well: It is a pleasure, to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea; a pleasure, to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle, and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below; so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling, or pride. Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth. To pass from theological, and philosophical truth, to the truth of civil business; it will be acknowledged, even by those that practise it not, that clear, and round dealing, is the honor of man's nature; and that mixture of falsehoods, is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it. For these winding, and crooked courses, are the goings of the serpent; which goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon the feet. There is no vice, that doth so cover a man with shame, as to be found false and perfidious. And therefore Montaigne saith prettily, when he inquired the reason, why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace, and such an odious charge? Saith he, If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards men. For a lie faces God, and shrinks from man. Surely the wickedness of falsehood, and breach of faith, cannot possibly be so highly expressed, as in that it shall be the last peal, to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men; it being foretold, that when Christ cometh, he shall not find faith upon the earth.