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John Lord
Beacon Lights of History, Volume 06: Renaissance and Reformation

Bacon was imprisoned but a few days, his ruinous fine of £40,000 was remitted, and he was even soon after received at court; but he never again held office. He was hopelessly disgraced; he was a ruined man; and he bitterly felt the humiliation, and acknowledged the justice of his punishment. He had now no further object in life than to pursue his studies, and live comfortably in his retirement, and do what he could for future ages.

But before we consider his immortal legacy to the world, let us take one more view of the man, in order that we may do him justice, and remove some of the cruel charges against him as "the meanest of mankind."

It must be borne in mind that, from the beginning of his career until his fall, only four or five serious charges have been made against him,–that he was extravagant in his mode of life; that he was a sycophant and office-seeker; that he deserted his patron Essex; that he tortured Peacham, a Puritan clergyman, when tried for high-treason; that he himself was guilty of corruption as a judge.

In regard to the first charge, it is unfortunately too true; he lived beyond his means, and was in debt most of his life. This defect, as has been said, was the root of much evil; it destroyed his independence, detracted from the dignity of his character, created enemies, and led to a laxity of the moral sense which prepared the way for corruption,–thereby furnishing another illustration of that fatal weakness which degrades any man when he runs races with the rich, and indulges in a luxury and ostentation which he cannot afford. It was the curse of Cicero, of William Pitt, and of Daniel Webster. The first lesson which every public man should learn, especially if honored with important trusts, is to live within his income. However inconvenient and galling, a stringent economy is necessary. But this defect is a very common one, particularly when men are luxurious, or brought into intercourse with the rich, or inclined to be hospitable and generous, or have a great imagination and a sanguine temperament. So that those who are most liable to fall into this folly have many noble qualities to offset it, and it is not a stain which marks the "meanest of mankind." Who would call Webster the meanest of mankind because he had an absurd desire to live like an English country gentleman?

In regard to sycophancy,–a disgusting trait, I admit,–we should consider the age, when everybody cringed to sovereigns and their favorites. Bacon never made such an abject speech as Omer Talon, the greatest lawyer in France, did to Louis XIII, in the Parliament of Paris. Three hundred years ago everybody bowed down to exalted rank: witness the obsequious language which all authors addressed to patrons in the dedication of their books. How small the chance of any man rising in the world, who did not court favors from those who had favors to bestow! Is that the meanest or the most uncommon thing in this world? If so, how ignominious are all politicians who flatter the people and solicit their votes? Is it not natural to be obsequious to those who have offices to bestow? This trait is not commendable, but is it the meanest thing we see?

In regard to Essex, nobody can approve of the ingratitude which Bacon showed to his noble patron. But, on the other hand, remember the good advice which Bacon ever gave him, and his constant efforts to keep him out of scrapes. How often did he excuse him to his royal mistress, at the risk of incurring her displeasure? And when Essex was guilty of a thousand times worse crime than ever Bacon committed,–even high-treason, in a time of tumult and insurrection,–and it became Bacon's task as prosecuting officer of the Crown to bring this great culprit to justice, was he required by a former friendship to sacrifice his duty and his allegiance to his sovereign, to screen a man who had perverted the affection of the noblest woman who ever wore a crown, and came near involving his country in a civil war? Grant that Essex had bestowed favors, and was an accomplished and interesting man,–was Bacon to ignore his official duties? He may have been too harsh in his procedure; but in that age all criminal proceedings were harsh and inexorable,–there was but little mercy shown to culprits, especially to traitors. If Elizabeth could bring herself, out of respect to her wounded honor and slighted kindness and the dignity of the realm and the majesty of the law, to surrender into the hands of justice one whom she so tenderly loved and magnificently rewarded, even when the sacrifice cost her both peace and life, snapped the last cord which bound her to this world,–may we not forgive Bacon for the part he played? Does this fidelity to an official and professional duty, even if he were harsh, make him "the meanest of mankind"?

In regard to Peacham, it is true he was tortured, according to the practice of that cruel age; but Bacon had no hand in the issuing of the warrant against him for high-treason, although in accordance with custom he, as prosecuting officer of the Crown, examined Peacham under torture before his trial. The parson was convicted; but the sentence of death was not executed upon him, and he died in jail.

And in regard to corruption,–the sin which cast Bacon from his high estate, though fortunately he did not fall like Lucifer, never to rise again,–may not the verdict of the poet and the historian be rather exaggerated? Nobody has ever attempted to acquit Bacon for taking bribes. Nobody has ever excused him. He did commit a crime; but in palliation it might be said that he never decided against justice, and that it was customary for great public functionaries to accept presents. Had he taken them after he had rendered judgment instead of before, he might have been acquitted; for out of the seven thousand cases which he decided as Lord-Chancellor, not one of them has been reversed: so that he said of himself, "I was the justest judge that England has had for fifty years; and I suffered the justest sentence that had been inflicted for two hundred years." He did not excuse himself. His ingenuousness of confession astonished everybody, and moved the hearts of his judges. It was his misfortune to be in debt; he had pressing creditors; and in two cases he accepted presents before the decision was made, but was brave enough to decide against those who bribed him,–hinc illoe lacrymoe. A modern corrupt official generally covers his tracks; and many a modern judge has been bribed to decide against justice, and has escaped ignominy, even in a country which claims the greatest purity and the loftiest moral standard. We admit that Bacon was a sinner; but was he a sinner above all others who cast stones at Jerusalem?

In reference to these admitted defects and crimes, I only wish to show that even these do not make him "the meanest of mankind." What crimes have sullied many of those benefactors whom all ages will admire and honor, and whom, in spite of their defects, we call good men,–not bad men to be forgiven for their services, but excellent and righteous on the whole! See Abraham telling lies to the King of Egypt; and Jacob robbing his brother of his birthright; and David murdering his bravest soldier to screen himself from adultery; and Solomon selling himself to false idols to please the wicked women who ensnared him; and Peter denying his Master; and Marcus Aurelius persecuting the Christians; and Constantine putting to death his own son; and Theodosius slaughtering the citizens of Thessalonica; and Isabella establishing the Inquisition; and Sir Mathew Hale burning witches; and Cromwell stealing a sceptre; and Calvin murdering Servetus; and Queen Elizabeth lying and cheating and swearing in the midst of her patriotic labors for her country and civilization. Even the sun passes through eclipses. Have the spots upon the career of Bacon hidden the brightness of his general beneficence? Is he the meanest of men because he had great faults? When we speak of mean men, it is those whose general character is contemptible.

Now, see Bacon pursuing his honorable career amid rebuffs and enmities and jealousies, toiling in Herculean tasks without complaint, and waiting his time; always accessible, affable, gentle, with no vulgar pride, if he aped vulgar ostentation; calm, beneficent, studious, without envy or bitterness; interesting in his home, courted as a friend, admired as a philosopher, generous to the poor, kind to the servants who cheated him, with an unsubdued love of Nature as well as of books; not negligent of religious duties, a believer in God and immortality; and though broken in spirit, like a bruised reed, yet soaring beyond all his misfortunes to study the highest problems, and bequeathing his knowledge for the benefit of future ages! Can such a man be stigmatized as "the meanest of mankind"? Is it candid and just for a great historian to indorse such a verdict, to gloss over Bacon's virtues, and make like an advocate at the bar, or an ancient sophist, a special plea to magnify his defects, and stain his noble name with an infamy as deep as would be inflicted upon an enemy of the human race? And all for what?–just to make a rhetorical point, and show the writer's brilliancy and genius in making a telling contrast between the man and the philosopher. A man who habitually dwelt in the highest regions of thought during his whole life, absorbed in lofty contemplations, all from love of truth itself and to benefit the world, could not have had a mean or sordid soul. "As a man thinketh, so is he." We admit that he was a man of the world, politic, self-seeking, extravagant, careless about his debts and how he raised money to pay them; but we deny that he was a bad judge on the whole, or was unpatriotic, or immoral in his private life, or mean in his ordinary dealings, or more cruel and harsh in his judicial transactions than most of the public functionaries of his rough and venal age. We admit it is difficult to controvert the charges which Macaulay arrays against him, for so accurate and painstaking an historian is not likely to be wrong in his facts; but we believe that they are uncandidly stated, and so ingeniously and sophistically put as to give on the whole a wrong impression of the man,–making him out worse than he was, considering his age and circumstances. Bacon's character, like that of most great men, has two sides; and while we are compelled painfully to admit that he had many faults, we shrink from classing him among bad men, as is implied in Pope's characterization of him as "the meanest of mankind."

We now take leave of the man, to consider his legacy to the world. And here again we are compelled to take issue with Macaulay, not in regard to the great fact that Bacon's inquiries tended to a new revelation of Nature, and by means of the method called induction, by which he sought to establish fixed principles of science that could not be controverted, but in reference to the ends for which he labored. "The aim of Bacon," says Macaulay, "was utility,–fruit; the multiplication of human enjoyments, … the mitigation of human sufferings, … the prolongation of life by new inventions,"–dotare vitam humanum novis inventis et copiis; "the conquest of Nature,"–dominion over the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air; the application of science to the subjection of the outward world; progress in useful arts,–in those arts which enable us to become strong, comfortable, and rich in houses, shops, fabrics, tools, merchandise, new vegetables, fruits, and animals: in short, a philosophy which will "not raise us above vulgar wants, but will supply those wants." "And as an acre in Middlesex is worth more than a principality in Utopia, so the smallest practical good is better than any magnificent effort to realize an impossibility;" and "hence the first shoemaker has rendered more substantial service to mankind than all the sages of Greece. All they could do was to fill the world with long beards and long words; whereas Bacon's philosophy has lengthened life, mitigated pain, extinguished disease, built bridges, guided the thunderbolts, lightened the night with the splendor of the day, accelerated motion, annihilated distance, facilitated intercourse; enabled men to descend to the depths of the earth, to traverse the land in cars which whirl without horses, and the ocean in ships which sail against the wind." In other words, it was his aim to stimulate mankind, not to seek unattainable truth, but useful truth; that is, the science which produces railroads, canals, cultivated farms, ships, rich returns for labor, silver and gold from the mines,–all that purchase the joys of material life and fit us for dominion over the world in which we live. Hence anything which will curtail our sufferings and add to our pleasures or our powers, should be sought as the highest good. Geometry is desirable, not as a noble intellectual exercise, but as a handmaid to natural philosophy. Astronomy is not to assist the mind to lofty contemplation, but to enable mariners to verify degrees of latitude and regulate clocks. A college is not designed to train and discipline the mind, but to utilize science, and become a school of technology. Greek and Latin exercises are comparatively worthless, and even mathematics, unless they can be converted into practical use. Philosophy, as ordinarily understood,–that is, metaphysics,–is most idle of all, since it does not pertain to mundane wants. Hence the old Grecian philosopher labored in vain; and still more profitless were the disquisitions of the scholastics of the Middle Ages, since they were chiefly used to prop up unintelligible creeds. Theology is not of much account, since it pertains to mysteries we cannot solve. It is not with heaven or hell, or abstract inquiries, or divine certitudes, that we have to do, but the things of earth,–things that advance our material and outward condition. To be rich and comfortable is the end of life,–not meditations on abstract and eternal truth, such as elevate the soul or prepare it for a future and endless life. The certitudes of faith, of love, of friendship, are of small value when compared with the blessings of outward prosperity. Utilitarianism is the true philosophy, for this confines us to the world where we are born to labor, and enables us to make acquisitions which promote our comfort and ease. The chemist and the manufacturer are our greatest benefactors, for they make for us oils and gases and paints,–things we must have. The philosophy of Bacon is an immense improvement on all previous systems, since it heralds the jubilee of trades, the millennium of merchants, the schools of thrift, the apostles of physical progress, the pioneers of enterprise,–the Franklins and Stephensons and Tyndalls and Morses of our glorious era. Its watchword is progress. All hail, then, to the electric telegraph and telephones and Thames tunnels and Crystal Palaces and Niagara bridges and railways over the Rocky Mountains! The day of our deliverance is come; the nations are saved; the Brunels and the Fieldses are our victors and leaders! Crown them with Olympic leaves, as the heroes of our great games of life. And thou, O England! exalted art thou among the nations,–not for thy Oxfords and Westminsters; not for thy divines and saints and martyrs and poets; not for thy Hookers and Leightons and Cranmers and Miltons and Burkes and Lockes; not for thy Reformation; not for thy struggles for liberty,–but for thy Manchesters and Birminghams, thy Portsmouth shipyards, thy London docks, thy Liverpool warehouses, thy mines of coal and iron, thy countless mechanisms by which thou bringest the wealth of nations into thy banks, and art enabled to buy the toil of foreigners and to raise thy standards on the farthest battlements of India and China. These conquests and acquisitions are real, are practical; machinery over life, the triumph of physical forces, dominion over waves and winds,–these are the great victories which consummate the happiness of man; and these are they which flow from the philosophy which Bacon taught.

Now Macaulay does not directly say all these things, but these are the spirit and gist of the interpretation which he puts upon Bacon's writings. The philosophy of Bacon leads directly to these blessings; and these constitute its great peculiarity. And it cannot be denied that the new era which Bacon heralded was fruitful in these very things,–that his philosophy encouraged this new development of material forces; but it may be questioned whether he had not something else in view than mere utility and physical progress, and whether his method could not equally be applied to metaphysical subjects; whether it did not pertain to the whole domain of truth, and take in the whole realm of human inquiry. I believe that Bacon was interested, not merely in the world of matter, but in the world of mind; that he sought to establish principles from which sound deductions might be made, as well as to establish reliable inductions. Lord Campbell thinks that a perfect system of ethics could be made out of his writings, and that his method is equally well adapted to examine and classify the phenomena of the mind. He separated the legitimate paths of human inquiry, giving his attention to poetry and politics and metaphysics, as well as to physics. Bacon does not sneer as Macaulay does at the ancient philosophers; he bears testimony to their genius and their unrivalled dialectical powers, even if he regards their speculations as frequently barren. He does not flippantly ridicule the homoousian and the homoiousian as mere words, but the expression and exponent of profound theological distinctions, as every theologian knows them to be. He does not throw dirt on metaphysical science if properly directed, still less on noble inquiries after God and the mysteries of life. He is subjective as well as objective. He treats of philosophy in its broadest meaning, as it takes in the province of the understanding, the memory, and the will, as well as of man in society. He speaks of the principles of government and of the fountains of law; of universal justice, of eternal spiritual truth. So that Playfair judiciously observes (and he was a scientist) "that it was not by sagacious anticipations of science, afterwards to be made in physics, that his writings have had so powerful an influence, as in his knowledge of the limits and resources of the human understanding. It would be difficult to find another writer, prior to Locke, whose works are enriched with so many just observations on mere intellectual phenomena. What he says of the laws of memory, of imagination, has never been surpassed in subtlety. No man ever more carefully studied the operation of his own mind and the intellectual character of others." Nor did Bacon despise metaphysical science, only the frivolous questions that the old scholastics associated with it, and the general barrenness of their speculations. He surely would not have disdained the subsequent inquiries of Locke, or Berkeley, or Leibnitz, or Kant. True, he sought definite knowledge,–something firm to stand upon, and which could not be controverted. No philosophy can be sound when the principle from which deductions are made is not itself certain or very highly probable, or when this principle, pushed to its utmost logical sequence, would lead to absurdity, or even to a conflict with human consciousness. To Bacon the old methods were wrong, and it was his primal aim to reform the scientific methods in order to arrive at truth; not truth for utilitarian ends chiefly, but truth for its own sake. He loved truth as Palestrina loved music, or Raphael loved painting, or Socrates loved virtue.

Now the method which was almost exclusively employed until Bacon's time is commonly called the deductive method; that is, some principle or premise was assumed to be true, and reasoning was made from this assumption. No especial fault was found with the reasoning of the great masters of logic like Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, for it never has been surpassed in acuteness and severity. If their premises were admitted, their conclusions would follow as a certainty. What was wanted was to establish the truth of premises, or general propositions. This Bacon affirmed could be arrived at only by induction; that is, the ascending from ascertained individual facts to general principles, by extending what is true of particulars to the whole class in which they belong. Bacon has been called the father of inductive science, since he would employ the inductive method. Yet he is not truly the father of induction, since it is as old as the beginnings of science. Hippocrates, when he ridiculed the quacks of his day, and collected the facts and phenomena of disease, and inferred from them the proper treatment of it, was as much the father of induction as Bacon himself. The error the ancients made was in not collecting a sufficient number of facts to warrant a sound induction. And the ancients looked out for facts to support some preconceived theory, from which they reasoned syllogistically. The theory could not be substantiated by any syllogistic reasonings, since conclusions could never go beyond assumptions; if the assumptions were wrong, no ingenious or elaborate reasoning would avail anything towards the discovery of truth, but could only uphold what was assumed. This applied to theology as well as to science. In the Dark Ages it was well for the teachers of mankind to uphold the dogmas of the Church, which they did with masterly dialectical skill. Those were ages of Faith, and not of Inquiry. It was all-important to ground believers in a firm faith of the dogmas which were deemed necessary to support the Church and the cause of religion. They were regarded as absolute certainties. There was no dispute about the premises of the scholastic's arguments; and hence his dialectics strengthened the mind by the exercise of logical sports, and at the same time confirmed the faith.

The world never saw a more complete system of dogmatic theology than that elaborated by Thomas Aquinas. When the knowledge of the Greek and Hebrew was rare and imperfect, and it was impossible to throw light by means of learning and science on the texts of Scripture, it was well to follow the interpretation of such a great light as Augustine, and assume his dogmas as certainties, since they could not then be controverted; and thus from them construct a system of belief which would confirm the faith. But Aquinas, with his Aristotelian method of syllogism and definitions, could not go beyond Augustine. Augustine was the fountain, and the water that flowed from it in ten thousand channels could not rise above the spring; and as everybody appealed to and believed in Saint Augustine, it was well to construct a system from him to confute the heretical, and which the heretical would respect. The scholastic philosophy which some ridicule, in spite of its puerilities and sophistries and syllogisms, preserved the theology of the Middle Ages, perhaps of the Fathers. It was a mighty bulwark of the faith which was then, accepted. No honors could be conferred on its great architects that were deemed extravagant. The Pope and the clergy saw in Thomas Aquinas the great defender of the Church,–not of its abuses, but of its doctrines. And if no new light can be shed on the Scripture text from which assumptions were made; if these assumptions cannot be assailed, if they are certitudes,–then we can scarcely have better text-books than those furnished to the theologians of the Middle Ages, for no modern dialetician can excel them in severity of logic. The great object of modern theologians should be to establish the authenticity and meaning of the Scripture texts on which their assumptions rest; and this can be done only by the method which Bacon laid down, which is virtually a collation and collection of facts,–that is, divine declarations. Establish the meaning of these without question, and we have principia from which we may deduce creeds and systems, the usefulness of which cannot be exaggerated, especially in an age of agnosticism. Having fundamental principles which cannot be gainsaid, we may philosophically draw deductions. Bacon did not make war on deduction, when its fundamental truths are established. Deduction is as much a necessary part of philosophy as induction: it is the peculiarity of the Scotch metaphysicians, who have ever deduced truths from those previously established. Deduction even enters into modern science as well as induction. When Cuvier deduced from a bone the form and habits of the mastodon; when Kepler deduced his great laws, all from the primary thought that there must be some numerical or geographical relation between the times, distances, and velocities of the revolving bodies of the solar system; when Newton deduced, as is said, the principle of gravitation from the fall of an apple; when Leverrier sought for a new planet from the perturbations of the heavenly bodies in their orbits,–we feel that deduction is as much a legitimate process as induction itself.

But deductive logic is the creation of Aristotle; and it was the authority of Aristotle that Bacon sought to subvert. The inductive process is also old, of which Bacon is called the father. How are these things to be reconciled and explained? Wherein and how did Bacon adapt his method to the discovery of truth, which was his principal aim,–that method which is the great cause of modern progress in science, the way to it being indicated by him pre-eminently?

The whole thing consists in this, that Bacon pointed out the right road to truth,–as a board where two roads meet or diverge indicates the one which is to be followed. He did not make a system, like Descartes or Spinoza or Newton: he showed the way to make it on sound principles. "He laid down a systematic analysis and arrangement of inductive evidence." The syllogism, the great instrument used by Aristotle and the School-men, "is, from its very nature, incompetent to prove the ultimate premises from which it proceeds; and when the truth of these remains doubtful, we can place no confidence in the conclusions drawn from them." Hence, the first step in the reform of science is to review its ultimate principles; and the first condition of a scientific method is that it shall be competent to conduct such an inquiry; and this method is applicable, not to physical science merely, but to the whole realm of knowledge. This, of course, includes poetry, art, intellectual philosophy, and theology, as well as geology and chemistry.

And it is this breadth of inquiry–directed to subjective as well as objective knowledge–which made Bacon so great a benefactor. The defect in Macaulay's criticism is that he makes Bacon interested in mere outward phenomena, or matters of practical utility,–a worldly utilitarian of whom Epicureans may be proud. In reality he soared to the realm of Plato as well as of Aristotle. Take, for instance, his Idola Mentis Humanae, or "Phantoms of the Human Mind," which compose the best-known part of the "Novum Organum." "The Idols of the Tribe" would show the folly of attempting to penetrate further than the limits of the human faculties permit, as also "the liability of the intellect to be warped by the will and affections, and the like." The "Idols of the Den" have reference to "the tendency to notice differences rather than resemblances, or resemblances rather than differences, in the attachment to antiquity or novelty, in the partiality to minute or comprehensive investigations." "The Idols of the Market-Place" have reference to the tendency to confound words with things, which has ever marked controversialists in their learned disputations. In what he here says about the necessity for accurate definitions, he reminds us of Socrates rather than a modern scientist; this necessity for accuracy applies to metaphysics as much as it does to physics. "The Idols of the Theatre" have reference to perverse laws of demonstration which are the strongholds of error. This school deals in speculations and experiments confined to a narrow compass, like those of the alchemists,–too imperfect to elicit the light which should guide.

Bacon having completed his discussion of the Idola, then proceeds to point out the weakness of the old philosophies, which produced leaves rather than fruit, and were stationary in their character. Here he would seem to lean towards utilitarianism, were it not that he is as severe on men of experiment as on men of dogma. "The men of experiment are," says he, "like ants,–they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes a middle course; it gathers the material from the flowers, but digests it by a power of its own.... So true philosophy neither chiefly relies on the powers of the mind, nor takes the matter which it gathers and lays it up in the memory, whole as it finds it, but lays it up in the understanding, to be transformed and digested." Here he simply points out the laws by which true knowledge is to be attained. He does not extol physical science alone, though doubtless he had a preference for it over metaphysical inquiries. He was an Englishman, and the English mind is objective rather than subjective, and is prone to over-value the outward and the seen, above the inward and unseen; and perhaps for the same reason that the Old Testament seems to make prosperity the greatest blessing, while adversity seems to be the blessing of the New Testament.

One of Bacon's longest works is the "Silva Sylvarum,"–a sort of natural history, in which he treats of the various forces and productions of Nature,–the air the sea, the winds, the clouds, plants and animals, fire and water, sounds and discords, colors and smells, heat and cold, disease and health; but which varied subjects he presents to communicate knowledge, with no especial utilitarian end.