Bio: Sir Francis Bacon

I’ve come across several references to Sir Francis Bacon in my research and have decided to put that information together for the website. This is very much a work in progress.

Wikipedia:

Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher, statesman and essayist, but is best known as a philosophical advocate and defender of the scientific revolution. Indeed, his dedication brought him into a rare historical group of scientists who were killed by their own experiments. His works established and popularized an inductive methodology for scientific inquiry, often called the Baconian method or simply, the scientific method. In the context of his time such methods were connected with the occult trends of H ermeticism and alchemy. Western alchemy has always been closely connected with Hermeticism, a philosophical and spiritual system that traces its roots to Hermes Trismegistus, a syncretic Egyptian-Greek deity and legendary alchemist. These two disciplines influenced the birth of Rosicrucianism, an important esoteric movement of the seventeenth century. In the course of the early modern period, mainstream alchemy evolved into modern chemistry. Nevertheless, his demand for a planned procedure of investigating all things natural marked a new turn in the rhetorical and theoretical framework for science, much of which still surrounds conceptions of proper methodology today. Bacon was knighted in 1603, created Baron Verulam in 1618, and created Viscount St Alban in 1621; without heirs, both peerages became extinct upon his death. He has been credited as the creator of the English essay.

Works & Philosophy

Bacon’s works include his Essays, as well as the Colours of Good and Evil and the Meditationes Sacrae, all published in 1597. His famous aphorism, “knowledge is power,” is found in the Meditations. He published The Proficience and Advancement of Learning in 1605. Bacon also wrote In felicem memoriam Elizabethae, a eulogy for the queen written in 1609; and various philosophical works which constitute the fragmentary and incomplete Instauratio magna, the most important part of which is the Novum Organum (published 1620). Bacon also wrote the Astrologia Sana and expressed his belief that stars had physical effects on the planet. He is also known for The New Atlantis, a utopian novel he wrote in 1626.

Bacon did not propose an actual philosophy, but rather a method of developing philosophy; he wrote that, whilst philosophy at the time used the deductive syllogism to interpret nature, the philosopher should instead proceed through inductive reasoning from fact to axiom to law. 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”^[3] (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 Theatre” (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. Bacon’s developments of the inductive philosophy would revolutionize the future thought of humanity.

Bacon’s somewhat fragmentary ethical system, derived through use of his methods, is explicated in the seventh and eighth books of his De augmentis scientiarum (1623). He distinguishes between duty to the community, an ethical matter, and duty to God, a purely religious matter. Any moral action is the action of the human will, which is governed by reason and spurred on by the passions; habit is what aids men in directing their will toward the good. No universal rules can be made, as both situations and men’s characters differ.

Bacon distinctly separated religion and philosophy, though the two can coexist. Where philosophy is based on reason, faith is based on revelation, and therefore irrational — in De augmentis he writes that “the more discordant, therefore, and incredible, the divine mystery is, the more honour is shown to God in believing it, and the nobler is the victory of faith.” And yet he writes in “The Essays: Of Atheism” that “a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion,” suggesting he continued to employ inductive reasoning in all areas of his life, including his own spiritual beliefs.

Bacon contrasted the new approach, of the development of science, with that of the middle ages. He once said, to top it all off: “Men have sought to make a world from their own conception and to draw from their own minds all the material which they employed, but if, instead of doing so, they had consulted experience and observation, they would have the facts and not opinions to reason about, and might have ultimately arrived at the knowledge of the laws which govern the material world.”

Bacon and Shakespeare

Since the 1800s, many scholars have written that Bacon was the author of the works attributed to Shakespeare (see Shakespearean authorship).

“Knowledge is power.” | Sir Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626), Religious Meditations, Of Heresies, 1597

Bio: Sir Francis Bacon

Works & Philosophy

Bacon and Shakespeare

Francis Bacon’s Influence on America?

Secret Mysteries of America’s Beginnings

Volume One - The New Atlantis

Secret Mysteries of America’s Beginnings

Volume Two Riddles In Stone: Secret Architecture of Washington, D.C.

Newfoundland Specialized Stamp Catalogue (NSSC)

Nieves de Madariaga Mathews (Javier Solana’s mother) and Francis Bacon