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Unit 2: Francis Bacon-Of Studies: Introduction

At the news of his death, over thirty great minds collected together their eulogies of him, which Notes
was then later published in Latin. He left personal assets of about £7,000 and lands that realised
£6,000 when sold. His debts amounted to more than £23,000, equivalent to more than £3m at
current value.

Bacon’s personal secretary and chaplain, William Rawley, however, wrote in his
biography of Bacon that his inter-marriage with Alice Barnham was one of “much conjugal
love and respect”, mentioning a robe of honour that he gave to her, and which “she wore
unto her dying day, being twenty years and more after his death”.

2.3 Philosophy and Works
Francis Bacon’s Philosophy is displayed in the vast and varied writings he left, which might be
divided in three great branches:
• Scientifical works - in which his ideas for an universal reform of knowledge, scientific method
and the improvement of mankind’s state are presented.
• Religious/literary works - in which he presents his moral philosophy and theological meditations.
• Juridical works - in which his reforms in Law are proposed.

Influence
Science
Bacon’s ideas were influential in the 1630s and 1650s among scholars, in particular Sir Thomas
Browne, who in his encyclopaedia Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646–1672) frequently adheres to a
Baconian approach to his scientific enquiries. During the Restoration, Bacon was commonly invoked
as a guiding spirit of the Royal Society founded under Charles II in 1660.
Bacon is also considered to be the philosophical influence behind the dawning of the Industrial age. In
his works, Bacon called for a “spring of a progeny of inventions, which shall overcome, to some extent,
and subdue our needs and miseries”,always proposing that all scientific work should be done for
charitable purposes, as matter of alleviating mankind’s misery, and that therefore science should be
practical and have as purpose the inventing of useful things for the improvement of mankind’s estate.
This changed the course of science in history, from a merely contemplative state, as it was found in
ancient and medieval ages, to a practical, inventive state - that would have eventually led to the
inventions that made possible the Industrial Revolutions of the following centuries.
The Industrial Revolution marks a major turning point in history. In the two centuries following
1800, the world’s average per capita income increased over tenfold, while the world’s population
increased over sixfold. In the words of Nobel Prize winner Robert E. Lucas, Jr., “For the first time

in history, the living standards of the masses of ordinary people have begun to undergo sustained
growth ... Nothing remotely like this economic behavior has happened before”.
He also wrote a long treatise on Medicine, History of Life and Death, with natural and experimental

observations for the prolongation of life.
For one of his biographers, Hepworth Dixon, Bacon’s influence in modern world is so great that
every man who rides in a train, sends a telegram, follows a steam plough, sits in an easy chair,
crosses the channel or the Atlantic, eats a good dinner, enjoys a beautiful garden, or undergoes a
painless surgical operation, owes him something.

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