Again this was an individual from history whose name I knew, but did not know why I should remember him. From the Librivox blurb about The Essays of Francis Bacon: “Diderot and Voltaire considered him the father of modern science. Others consider him only the father of the scientific method.” Mr. Church went back and forth on this at one pointing stating that he was mainly the individual who had a platform and broadcasted the fundamentals of experimental science to a larger audience. Either way it was an important contribution.
Bacon was a collector of “facts” and searcher after a key to unlock the meaning of the collected facts. He was a proponent of deductive reasoning over inductive reason to understand our world. Deductive reasoning with the scientific method1 was the key he sought.
Generally, when they call someone complex or complicated it is an indication that the good and bad side of humanity comes out frequently in an individual. Francis Bacon was a complicated individual. His real passion was improving man’s knowledge in the fields of natural philosophy as the sciences were called in his era. Yet it became a lawyer in order to make a living. He was all too concerned wealth and position. Mr. Church calls him a people pleaser, especially of those in power. It was this need that may have been his downfall. His primary passion, the natural philosophies, then became his avocation, and was something he pursued throughout his life.
He counseled 2 monarchs of England, Elizabeth I and James I, although neither seemed overly fond of him. After much lobbying he succeeded in obtaining public service appointments finally ending up as Lord Chancellor, a very highly placed judge in the English judicial system of the time. It was in this position that his downfall came. The House of Commons accused him of bribe taking. Mr. Church feels that he became ensnared in a general feeling against corruption of the time. While Bacon was taking “gifts”, it was no more than was generally practiced throughout the government of the time. Mr. Church could find little evidence that these “gifts” affected Bacon’s decisions on the bench. Nevertheless this ended his public service. It is also to be noted Bacon accumulated several enemies along the way in doing services for the two monarchs. Whether there was a conspiracy against him his unknown, but these enemies ensured his punishment was harsh.
Mr. Church has presented us with a scholarly and interesting study of Francis Bacon and his times. If you enjoy history and reading about the machinations of famous men you will enjoy this book.
This book is in the public domain and can be downloaded for free.
Audio book from LibriVox.org : Bacon
e-Book from Gutenberg.org: Bacon
Wikipedia article:
Footnotes:
- For a discussion of the scientific method see the Wikipedia article
Bonus:
From the website sciencebuddies.org
The scientific method is a way to ask and answer scientific questions by making observations and doing experiments.
The steps of the scientific method are to:
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- Ask a Question
- Do Background Research
- Construct a Hypothesis
- Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
- Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
- Communicate Your Results
It is important for your experiment to be a fair test. A “fair test” occurs when you change only one factor (variable) and keep all other conditions the same.