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Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon was an English Renaissance statesman and philosopher, best known for his promotion of the scientific method.  Statesman and philosopher Francis Bacon was born in London on January 22, 1561. Francis Bacon began attending Trinity College, Cambridge, when he was 12 years old. The following year, Bacon enrolled in a law program, the school his brother Anthony attended. Finding the curriculum at Gray’s Inn stale and old fashioned, Bacon later called his tutors “men of sharp wits, shut up in their cells if a few authors, chiefly Aristotle, their dictator.” Bacon favored the new Renaissance humanism over Aristotelianism and scholasticism, the more traditional schools of thought in England at the time. A year after he enrolled at Gray’s Inn, Bacon left school to work under Sir Amyas Paulet, British Ambassador to France, during his mission in Paris.

In 1617, his career peaked when he was invited to join the Privy Council. Just a year later, he reached the same position of his father as a Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. In 1618, Bacon surpassed his father’s achievements when he was promoted to the lofty title of Lord Chancellor, one of the highest political offices in England. In 1621, the same year that Bacon became Viscount St. Albans, he was accused of accepting bribes and impeached by Parliament for corruption. Bacon remained in St. Albans after the collapse of his political career. Retired, he was now able to focus on his passion. Biographer Loren Eisley described Bacon’s compelling desire to invent a new scientific method, stating that Bacon,” more fully than any man of his time”. Bacon himself claimed that his empirical scientific method would spark a light in nature that would “eventually disclose and bring into sight all that is most hidden and secret in the universe.It was not until 1620, when Bacon published Book One of Novum Organum Scientiarum (novum organum is Latin for “new method”), that bacon established himself as a reputable philosopher of science. Bacon agreed with medieval thinkers that humans too often erred in interpreting what their 5 senses perceived, he also realized that people’s sensory experiences. Because humans could incorrectly interpret anything they saw, heard, smelled, tasted or felt, Bacon insisted that they must doubt everything before assuming its truth. In order to test the potential truths or hypotheses, Bacon devised a method whereby scientist set up experiments to manipulate nature and attempt their hypotheses wrong. Bacon’s philosophies regarding experimentation and observation came to be accepted, people began using them to harness nature for profit. The study of nature came to be less about changing traditional attitudes and beliefs and more about stimulating the economy. By the end of the following century, the Scientific Revolution had given birth to an industrial Revolution that dramatically transformed the daily lives of people around the world. Western society has been moving forward on Bacon’s model for the past 300 years. Perhaps though, we are in danger of forgetting the vital role doubt played in Bacon’s philosophy, even with powerful microscopes, there still a lot human senses miss. In March 1626, Bacon was performing a series of experiments with ice. While testing the effects of cold on preservation and decay of meat, he stuffed a hen with snow near Highgate, England, and caught a chill. The guest room where Bacon resided was cold and musty. He soon developed bronchitis. On April 9, 1626, a week after he had arrived at Lord Arundel’s estate, Francis Bacon died. In the years after Bacon’s death, his theories began to have a major influence on the evolving field of 17th- century European science.
                  Francis Bacon’s philosophy as of today has been valued by each and every one of us by using it in everyday’s life. We should learn that we must doubt before assuming the truth. He makes us think and do things using our five senses properly without missing any of it. He assures that potential truths will not be manipulated and will undergo through experimentation so there will be basis in getting facts that we can rely on.