A Very Short Fact: On this day in 1561, English philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon was born in London. Often called the father of empiricism, Bacon is credited with developing the scientific method.
“The linkage of scientific discovery to practical application is perhaps most often associated with Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626). Born into a well-placed family, educated as a lawyer, elected to Parliament, ennobled as Lord Verulam, and eventually named Lord Chancellor of England (and ousted on bribery charges), Bacon lived most of his life in the halls of power. Accordingly, the topic of power and the building of empire was rarely far from his thoughts. He asserted that natural philosophical knowledge should be used; it promised power for the good of mankind and the state. He characterized – or caricatured – the natural philosophy of his day as barren, its methods and goals misguided, its practitioners busy with words but neglecting works. Indeed, although Bacon expressed skepticism of natural magic’s metaphysical foundations, he praised magic because it ‘proposes to recall natural philosophy from a miscellany of speculations to a magnitude of works’. Natural philosophy should be operative not speculative – it should do things, make things, and give human beings power. He considered printing, the compass, and gunpowder – all technological achievements – to have been the most transformative forces in human history. As a result, Bacon called for nothing less than a ‘total reconstruction of sciences, arts, and all human knowledge’.
Methodology is crucial to Bacon’s desired reform. He advocated the compilation of ‘natural histories’, vast collections of observations of phenomena whether spontaneously occurring or the result of human experimentation, what he called forcing nature out of her usual course. After sufficient raw materials had been collected, natural philosophers could fit them together to formulate increasingly universal principles by a process of induction. The key was to avoid premature theorizing, navel-gazing speculations, and the building of grand explanatory systems. Once the more general principles of nature had been uncovered, they should then be used productively. Yet Bacon did not advocate a crass utilitarianism. Experiments were useful not only when they produced fruit (practical application) but also when they brought light to the mind. True knowledge of nature served both for ‘the glory of the Creator and the relief of man’s estate’. While Bacon is clear that one goal of his enterprise is to strengthen and expand Britain – although neither Elizabeth I nor James I responded to his petitions for state support of his ideas for reform – on a larger scale Bacon saw the goal of such operative knowledge as to regain the power and human dominion over nature bestowed by God in Genesis, but lost with Adam’s Fall.” — From ‘The Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction’ by Lawrence M. Principe.
[Pg. 120-1 — From ‘The Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction’ by Lawrence M. Principe.]
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