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Unit 11: Of Revenge by Francis Bacon

Works), a centrally organized research facility where specially trained teams of investigators Notes
collect data, conduct experiments, and (most importantly from Bacon’s point of view) apply
the knowledge they gain to produce “things of use and practice for man’s life.” These new arts
and inventions they eventually share with the outside world.
In terms of its sci-fi adventure elements, the New Atlantis is about as exciting as a government
or university re-organization plan. But in terms of its historical impact, the novel has proven
to be nothing less than revolutionary, having served not only as an effective inspiration and
model for the British Royal Society, but also as an early blueprint and prophecy of the modern
research centre and international scientific community.

Scientific and Philosophical Works

It is never easy to summarize the thought of a prolific and wide-ranging philosopher. Yet
Bacon somewhat simplifies the task by his own helpful habits of systematic classification and
catchy mnemonic labeling. (Thus, for example, there are three “distempers” – or diseases – of
learning,” eleven errors or “peccant humours,” four “idols,” three primary mental faculties
and categories of knowledge, etc.) In effect, by following Bacon’s own methods it is possible
to produce a convenient outline or overview of his main scientific and philosophical ideas.

The Great Instauration

As early as 1592, in a famous letter to his uncle, Lord Burghley, Bacon declared “all knowledge”
to be his province and vowed his personal commitment to a plan for the full-scale rehabilitation
and reorganization of learning. In effect, he dedicated himself to a long-term project of intellectual
reform, and the balance of his career can be viewed as a continuing effort to make good on
that pledge. In 1620, while he was still at the peak of his political success, he published the
preliminary description and plan for an enormous work that would fully answer to his earlier
declared ambitions. The work, dedicated to James, was to be called Magna Instauratio (that is,
the “grand edifice” or Great Instauration), and it would represent a kind of summa or culmination
of all Bacon’s thought on subjects ranging from logic and epistemology to practical science (or
what in Bacon’s day was called “natural philosophy,” the word science being then but a
general synonym for “wisdom” or “learning”).

Like several of Bacon’s projects, the Instauratio in its contemplated form was never finished.
Of the intended six parts, only the first two were completed, while the other portions were
only partly finished or barely begun. Consequently, the work as we have it is less like the vast
but well-sculpted monument that Bacon envisioned than a kind of philosophical miscellany or
grab-bag. Part I of the project, De Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum (“Nine Books of the
Dignity and Advancement of Learning”), was published in 1623. It is basically an enlarged
version of the earlier Proficience and Advancement of Learning, which Bacon had presented
to James in 1605. Part II, the Novum Organum (or “New Organon”) provides the author’s
detailed explanation and demonstration of the correct procedure for interpreting nature. It
first appeared in 1620. Together these two works present the essential elements of Bacon’s
philosophy, including most of the major ideas and principles that we have come to associate
with the terms “Baconian” and “Baconianism.”

The Advancement of Learning

Relatively early in his career Bacon judged that, owing mainly to an undue reverence for the
past (as well as to an excessive absorption in cultural vanities and frivolities), the intellectual
life of Europe had reached a kind of impasse or standstill. Yet he believed there was a way
beyond this stagnation if persons of learning, armed with new methods and insights, would

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