Sir Francis Bacon (later Lord
Verulam and the Viscount 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:
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.
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.
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