Bacon, FRANCIS, Lord Verulam and Viscount St Albans, born at York House, in the Strand, London, 22d January 1561, is usually, but inaccurately, spoken of as Lord Bacon. He was the younger son of Sir Nicholas Bacon (q.v.) by his second wife Ann, second daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, Edward VI.'s tutor. Bacon passed his boyhood with his elder brother Anthony under the stern discipline of his mother, a woman of powerful will and a zealous Calvinist. When twelve years old (1573), he, with
Anthony, entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where the brothers remained till Christmas 1575. In June 1576 they began to study law as 'ancients' of Gray's Inn. A year later, Bacon went to Paris in attendance on the ambassador Sir Amias Paulet, but his father's death recalled him in 1579. Little property fell to his share, and he applied himself anew to the law, being called to the bar in 1582, and becoming a bencher of his inn in 1586.
From an early age Bacon exhibited extraordinary intellectual capacity. Queen Elizabeth noticed his precocity when he came to court with his father: at Cambridge the youth recognised the barrenness of scholastic philosophy and the need of educational reform, and soon afterwards became conscious of power in himself to apply to science original methods of study, which should extend man's knowledge of nature beyond any limits yet reached. To fulfil this ambition he resolved to adapt his career. Lucrative employment was necessary to supply him with the means of research, and he was twice injudicious enough (1580 and 1592) to assert openly that he subordinated everything to his 'contemplative ends,' when petitioning the powerful minister Burghley, who had married his mother's sister, for place about the court. Burghley declined to aid him, and to advance his worldly interests Bacon added to his legal practice an independent pursuit of politics. He became member of parliament for Melcombe Regis in 1584, for Taunton in 1586, and for Middlesex in 1593; and sought to attract the queen's attention by addressing to her a paper of advice in 1584, in which, with a boldness unique in a barrister of three-and-twenty, he argued for more tolerance in the treatment of recusants, and by writing in 1589 a statesmanlike pamphlet on the controversies in the Anglican Church, in which he pleaded for elasticity in matters of doctrine and discipline. These efforts were overlooked, and in 1593 he offended the queen by opposing in parliament the grant of a subsidy. Meanwhile, in despair of obtaining any favour from Burghley, Bacon attached himself to the brilliant and impulsive Earl of Essex, Burghley's rival at court, through whom he thought to put into effect some of his political schemes. Essex, who also took Bacon's brother Anthony into his service, strove in vain to obtain for Bacon in 1593 the office first of attorney and then of solicitor general, and in 1596 that of master of the rolls. Bacon's disappointments were embittered by want of money, and he gladly accepted from Essex a gift of land at Twickenham. To enable Essex to secure a permanent hold on the queen's favour, Bacon recommended him to employ petty tricks of flattery, which were ill adapted to his frank and impulsive character, and Bacon soon found that he had misunderstood his patron. He advised him in 1598 (although he afterwards denied having done so) to undertake the suppression of Tyrone's great rebellion in Ireland, and when the earl returned thence in disgrace (September 1599) and was tried in June, Bacon, at his own request, acted (in a subordinate capacity) with the prosecuting counsel, in the hope, as he said, of aiding his patron. Essex was dismissed from all offices of state, and released in August. Bacon, like his brother Anthony, seemed anxious for his reinstatement in the queen's favour, but when Essex broke into open rebellion in January 1601, Bacon voluntarily endeavoured to secure his conviction on the capital charge of treason; drew up after the execution the official declaration of Essex's treasons; and apologised in another paper for his own conduct, on the ground that the maintenance of the state is superior to private ties of friendship.
In the last years of Elizabeth's reign, Bacon tried, in and out of parliament, to act the part of mediator between crown and commons, and recommended a tolerant policy in Ireland. On James I.'s accession (1603), Bacon sought royal favour by extravagant professions of loyalty; by planning schemes for the union of England and Scotland, and for pacifying the Church of England on comprehensive lines; and by making speeches in parliament, in which he tried to prove that the claims of the king and parliament could be reconciled without degrading either estate. For these services he was knighted (23d July 1603), and was made a commissioner for the union of Scotland and England. In 1604 he received a pension of £60 a year in consideration (as the patent stated) of James's respect for his brother Anthony, who had died in 1601, after proving himself a staunch champion of the Scottish succession. In 1605 Bacon showed how his leisure had been employed, by publishing the Advancement of Learning; and on 10th May 1606 he married Alice Barnham, a London alderman's daughter, of whose personal character nothing is known. His public fortune had now changed. On 25th June 1607 he became solicitor-general, after a delay caused partly by the opposition of Burghley's son and successor, Sir Robert Cecil, and partly by Bacon's unwillingness to serve under Sir Edward Coke, a personal enemy, who was attorney-general till 1607.
In the last session of James's first parliament (February 1611) the differences between crown and commons grew very critical, and Bacon assumed his former rôle of mediator, although he confessed his distrust of James's chief-minister, Cecil (now created Lord Salisbury). At the same time he argued in published tracts that reform could best be assured by a liberal use of the king's prerogative. On Salisbury's death in 1612, Bacon informed the king that he was willing to devote himself exclusively to politics, and offered to manage parliament and to obtain supplies without concerting undignified bargains after Salisbury's discredited methods. He was disappointed of the office of master of the wards at this time, but, on 27th October 1613, was promoted to the attorney-generalship. In the 'Added Parliament' of 1614 Bacon was still sanguine of effecting what he called his policy e gemino, according to which the interests of king and people should be made to coincide. A sympathetic atmosphere between the two bodies was to be developed, and mutual concessions were to follow, accurately defined and spontaneously rendered. In October 1615 he pleaded in vain for a new parliament, while re-enunciating his sanguine views. By that date Bacon saw that James was as little likely as Essex to adopt his domestic policy, and soon perceived that the bold handling of foreign affairs, which he regarded as essential to the conservation of patriotism, was alien to the nature of a king who delighted in intricate diplomacy. But Bacon craved for personal advancement with increased eagerness, and henceforth he obtained it by suppressing his real opinions, by conventional flattery of all who could serve him, and by systematising petty tricks of conduct in order to circumvent the opposition of those likely to obstruct him.
In 1615 two prosecutions in which he engaged illustrate his servility. In one, Oliver St John was prosecuted for denouncing the illegality of benevolences, and made his submission. In the other, Edmund Peacham, an old Somersetshire clergyman, was charged with having written a sermon, which he had not preached, justifying insurrection under certain circumstances. Torture was applied with Bacon's assent, although not at his suggestion, and Bacon examined the prisoner while undergoing it, without extracting any information. It was then resolved to prosecute Peacham for treason in the King's Bench, and Bacon undertook to confer separately and privately with each judge of the court, in order to secure a conviction. Three judges yielded to Bacon's advice, but Coke resisted, and at the trial denied that Peacham, who was convicted and died in prison, was guilty of treason. In 1616 Bacon prosecuted Somerset, with whom he was intimate, for the murder of Overbury, and in that and the next year helped to secure Coke's dismissal from the bench, on the grounds, first, that the judge denied the superiority of the Court of Chancery to his own Court of King's Bench, and secondly, that he allowed the king's prerogative to be questioned in an exchequer case.
On 9th June 1616 Bacon became a privy councillor, and on 7th March 1617 Buckingham, whom Bacon had persistently courted, obtained the lord-keeperhip for him. On 7th January 1618 he became lord chancellor, and on 12th July he was raised to the peerage as Lord Verulam. The title was taken from Verulamium, the Latin name of St Albans, near which lay Bacon's estate of Gorhambury. Bacon's obsequiousness was now more marked than ever. He accepted the king's policy of the Spanish marriage, although it was hostile to all his principles, and by exceptional self-abasement averted a quarrel with Buckingham, whose brother's marriage with Coke's daughter Bacon had vindictively opposed. A word from Buckingham influenced his behaviour to suitors in the Court of Chancery, where he worked hard in clearing off arrears. In one case, a Dr Steward complained to Buckingham that Bacon had decided a case against him; Buckingham wrote to Bacon expressing his surprise, whereupon Bacon cancelled his decision, and referred the case anew to arbitrators outside the court. Bacon was on the side of severity in the cases of Raleigh (1618) and of his own friend Sir Henry Yelverton (1619). In 1620 he advised the summoning of a new parliament; on 12th October in that year published his Novum Organum; and on 26th January 1621, was created Viscount St Albans. But his fall was now at hand. The Commons, led by Bacon's enemy Coke, first inquired into a recent increase of monopoly-patents, by which Buckingham had enriched his relatives. Bacon had argued for their legality, and parliament was anxious to call him to account for this opinion, but the king refused to sanction the step. Complaint was then made that Bacon was in the habit of taking bribes from suitors in his court, and on 17th March 1621, charges were sent to the House of Lords by the Commons for inquiry. Bacon fell ill. That he took presents from suitors was undeniable, but that he allowed these gifts to influence his judicial decisions has been disputed with some effect. Nevertheless, the Steward case shows that Bacon was guilty, in one instance at least, of polluting justice. On 20th April, a copy of the accusation was sent him, and a week later he submitted himself to the will of his fellow-peers, without offering any defence. It was ordered that he be fined £40,000, be imprisoned during the king's pleasure, and be banished parliament and the court. In June he was released from the Tower, and retired to his family residence at Gorhambury, near St Albans. In September the king pardoned him, but declined to allow him to return to parliament or the court. Bacon employed himself in literary work, completing his Henry VII. and his Latin translation of his Advancement (De Augmentis). In March 1622 he offered to make a digest of the laws, but no further notice was taken of him in spite of the frequent petitions that he addressed to Buckingham, James I., and James's successor, Charles. In
March 1626 he caught cold while stuffing a fowl with snow near Highgate, in order to observe the effect of cold on the preservation of flesh. He was removed to the neighbouring house of Lord Arundel, where he died on 9th April. He was buried in St Michael's Church, St Albans. He was fond of pomp in his domestic arrangements, and died deep in debt.
Bacon's literary work occupied the greater part of his time throughout his life. It is divisible into philosophical, purely literary, and professional writings. To the first the chief importance is to be attached. Bacon's philosophy is to be studied in (1) The Advancement of Learning (1605), a review in English of the state of knowledge in his own time, and its chief defects; (2) De Augmentis Scientiarum (1623), a Latin expansion of The Advancement; and (3) Novum Organum, or Indications respecting the Interpretations of Nature (1620), which was intended to form the second book of a never-completed greater treatise, Instauratio Magna, a review and encyclopaedia of all knowledge. To the Novum Organum, preliminary drafts of which are to be found in a number of detached pieces, Cogitata et Visa, Temporis Partus Maseulus, &c., was prefixed a Distributio Operis, a plan of the greater work; and in Historia Ventorum (1622), Historia Vitæ et Mortis (1623), Historia Densi et Rari (1658), and Sylva Sylvarum (collection of collections, 1627), materials chiefly consisting of digested facts of natural history, for other portions of the Instauratio, are extant.
Bacon's system for interpreting Nature which was to lay the foundations of the natural sciences is exhibited in all these works. He first abandons the deductive logic of Aristotle and the schoolmen, in which preconceived theories were constructed without reference to actual fact, and were syllogistically arranged to lead to elaborate conclusions never tested by observation and experiment. Bacon relied on inductive methods—on the accumulation and systematic analysis of isolated facts to be obtained by observation and experiment. From this assemblage of facts alone were any conclusions to be drawn. The induction was to rest not on a simple enumeration of phenomena, a method familiar to predecessors of Bacon, but on their careful selection and arrangement, with necessary rejections and eliminations. 'Phantoms of the human mind'—'idols' (eidōla) of the tribe, the cave, the market-place, and the theatre, as Bacon called them—inherited by man, or produced by his environment, were exposed and swept aside. Nothing was to obscure the 'dry light of reason.' Bacon took all knowledge for his province, and his inductive system was to arrive at the causes not only of natural but of all moral and political effects. While developing his new scientific method, Bacon made some shrewd scientific observations. He described heat as a mode of motion, and light as requiring time for transmission, but he was behind the scientific knowledge of his time; knew nothing of Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood, or of Kepler's calculations, and rejected the Copernican system of astronomy. His system was never finished. He never reached his examination of metaphysics—of final causes—which was to succeed his treatment of physics.
His greatness consists in his repeated insistence on the facts that man is the servant and interpreter of Nature, that truth is not derived from authority, and that knowledge is the fruit of experience. The impetus which his inductive methods gave to future scientific investigation is indisputable. As he himself described it, he 'rang the bell which called the other wits together.' He was the practical creator of scientific induction, and although succeeding scientific experimentalists may have been unconscious of their indebtedness to him, their chief results are due to their adoption of his logical method. An attempt has been made to credit Bacon with the parentage of the English philosophy of Hobbes, Locke, and Hume. That Bacon, like these philosophers, was an empiricist or realist is obvious; but that his philosophy was systematic enough to originate a school of thought, in the same sense that Descartes and Hegel founded a philosophic school, is untrue.
As a writer of English prose and a student of human nature, Bacon is seen to best advantage in his Essays, ten of which were first published in 1597; after passing through new editions in 1598, 1604, 1606, and 1612, they reached the final number of 58 in 1625. Full of practical wisdom and keen observation of life, written in concise language of extraordinary pith and dignity, they illustrate the worldly shrewdness of their author, as well as his quickness and accuracy of perception. His History of Henry VII. (1622) shows scholarly research, besides a direct and nervous style. In his fanciful New Atlantis, Bacon suggests the formation of scientific academies—a suggestion to which the foundation of the Royal Society has been traced. Bacon's Apophthegeims (1625) are a disappointing collection of witticisms. His religious works included prayers and a verse translation of the Psalms (1625), which display a personal piety difficult to reconcile with his conduct. Bacon's professional works embrace Maxims of the Law (1630), Reading on the Statute of Uses (1642), pleadings in law cases, and speeches in parliament. Dr Rowley, Bacon's chaplain in 1638, and Isaac Gruter in 1653, at Amsterdam, issued imperfect collected editions of Bacon's works. Others followed in 1655 (at Frankfurt), in 1730 (by Blackburn), and in 1825-36 (by Basil Montagu). The last was superseded only by the complete edition of Spedding, Ellis, and Heath (14 vols. 1857-74), seven volumes of which were devoted to the apologetic Life and Letters by Mr James Spedding. For the Baconian system, see also Kuno Fischer's Francis Bacon von Verulam (1856; Eng. trans. 1857); Professor Fowler's edition of the Novum Organum (1878); and Professor Nichol's Francis Bacon: his Life and Philosophy (2 vols. 1890). Macaulay's brilliant attack on Bacon's character, and eulogy of his philosophy (first issued in Edinburgh Review, July 1837), lack sobriety in both sections. Mr S. R. Gardiner's account of Bacon in his History and in the Dictionary of National Biography, where Bacon is represented as a far-seeing politician, Dean Church's monograph in the Men of Letters Series (1884), and Dr Abbott's Life (1885), form valuable commentaries on Spedding's conclusions.
'For my name and memory,' Bacon wrote in his will, 'I leave it to men's charitable speeches and to foreign nations and the next ages.' An unparalleled belief in himself, which justified to himself his ignoring of all ordinary laws of morality, is the leading feature in his character. He was taught by the example of the Machiavellian politicians who were his father's friends, to disregard elementary notions of right and wrong; in early youth he was conscious from the first of the possession of intellectual power which, if properly applied, could revolutionise man's relations with nature, and as a consequence, he recognised no justice in any moral obstacle which might prevent his attainment of such material wealth and position as would enable him to realise his intellectual ambition. Neither Macaulay's mingled contempt and admiration, nor Pope's popular epigram in his Essay on Man (iv. 281-2)—
If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined;
The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind— is an adequate summary of his character. Bacon found it necessary to turn much of his attention to politics in his attempt to gain worldly power, and showed there some of his mental capacity. But he was never absorbed in politics, and always regarded himself (as he phrased it) in great part a stranger in the political sphere; his political principles were not large enough or definite enough to enable him to play a commanding part in the constitutional crisis. He did not make sufficient allowance at any time for the natural dispositions and abilities of the men with whom he worked. He drew up practical rules and sketched out elaborate tricks for the conduct of those who, like himself, were the architects of their own fortunes. But he failed entirely as a manager of men. It is only in scientific and literary work that he was great; but there very few have proved greater.