(Note: Page Numbers refer to the Novum Organum (NO) and The Advancement of Learning (AL) in The Works of Francis Bacon (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1857).)

    1. He was the youngest son of a wealthy, titled family who entered Cambridge University at the age of 12.

    2. He became a lawyer and became a member of the House of Commons by the time he was 23.

    3. He was in line to become Elizabeth I's attorney general until he made a speech in Parliament criticizing her policies on taxation.

    4. Under Elizabeth I, he prosecuted his good friend the earl of Essex--who had previously befriended him and even given him an estate.

        a. Essex had once been a favorite of the Queen; and he used his influence to help Bacon.

        b. Bacon justified his prosecution of his friend by saying that he had a greater duty to serve the queen.

    5. Under James I, he successively became solicitor general, attorney general, keeper of the great seal, lord chancellor, a baron, and a viscount.

        a. He was especially favored by the king because Bacon argued for law based upon absolute power of the monarchy rather than the common law position of a rival, Sir Edward Coke.

    6. In 1621, he was prosecuted and convicted for bribery and forced to retire from public life

    7. He died due a chill that worsened as the aftermath of an experiment to test whether snow would prevent putrefaction of a dead fowl

    8. Major works:

        a. The Advancement of Learning (1605)

        b. Novum Organum (1620)

        c. Essays (1597, 1612, 1625)

        d. New Atlantis (published 1627)

    1. Insistence on the use of empirical methods through induction led to his being the founder of British Empiricism (with some allowance made for the prior work of Roger Bacon).

        a. Development of the inductive methods of agreement, difference, and correlative (concomitant) variation

    2. Insistence upon the study of science as a practical way of gaining control, or power, over nature

    3. Support for an organized approach to acquiring scientific knowledge through mechanical methods and organization

    4. The founding of the Royal Society in 1660 is usually attributed, in part, to Bacon's advocacy of an organized pursuit of knowledge.

    5. Rejection of final causes

    6. His terminology, however, was never taken up extensively by other philosophers-- except for some of his methods of induction.

                1) Supposing more order and regularity in the world than one finds

            2) Trying to make everything else agree with an accepted opionion

            3) Being strongly impressed by whatever strikes and enters the mind simultaneously and suddenly

4) Pushing on to a further conclusion even when doing so is unfruitful

5) Judging according to the "will and affections" (believing what one wants to believe)

6) Relying on the senses without taking into account their dullness, incompetence, and deceptions (careful experimentation being Bacon's corrective to this problem)

7) Giving substance and reality to abstractions that are fleeting

1) Becoming attached to one's own creations, or to what one has spent much time in developing and working with

2) Overdoing emphasis on resemblances or differences

3) Overdoing emphasis on antiquity or novelty

4) Overdoing emphasis on the simple (distraction of understanding) or the complex (dissolution of understanding)

1) Using names of things which do not exist--e.g. Prime Mover, elements of fire, fortune

2) Using names that are confused, ill-defined, or hastily and irregularly derived from realities

1) Sophistical overrationalization (Aristotle)

2) Too much emphasis on a few empirical instances (Gilbert)

3) Superstitious mixing of philosophy with theology and tradition (Pythagoras and Plato)

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Last updated 1/12/04