Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
Born	22 January 1561 Strand, London, England
Died	9 April 1626 Highgate, Middlesex, England
Cause of death	Pneumonia
Nationality	English
Alma mater	Cambridge University
Era	English Renaissance, The Scientific Revolution, The Enlightenment Era
Region	Western philosophy
School	Renaissance Philosophy, Empiricism
Influences Presocratics (Democritus, Empedocles, Parmenides), Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Niccolò Machiavelli, Michel de Montaigne, Vanoccio Biringuccio, Bernard Palissy, Bernardino Telesio, William Gilbert, Roger Bacon
Influenced Thomas Hobbes, Isaac Newton, John Locke, Encyclopédistes, Basil Montagu, Thomas Jefferson
Signature

Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St. Alban KC, (22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), was an English philosopher, statesman, and author. He has been described as one of the greatest thinkers ever whose ideas have changed the way people think.

Life

He was born in London, the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, and the nephew of Queen Elizabeth's advisor, William Cecil. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. His first job was as a lawyer. He later became a Member of Parliament and in 1586 he took a leading part in having Mary Queen of Scots executed. He became a friend of Robert Deveraux, the Earl of Essex, in 1591, and received many valuable gifts from him. After Essex led a rebellion against the Queen, Bacon was one of the people who led the investigation which led to Essex's Execution in 1601.

Bacon was often in trouble for spending too much, and in 1601 he was arrested for debt. When King James became king in 1603, Bacon's position improved. He was knighted in 1603. He was one of the people who argued for the joining of England and Scotland together as one country, which happened after his lifetime, in the 1700s. Bacon married Alice Barnham in 1606, and the next year he was made the Solicitor General. He continued to be given better paying positions including Attorney General, Lord Keeper, and Lord Chancellor.

He was made Baron Verulam in 1618, and Viscount St Albans in 1621. Because he did not have children both titles ended when he died.

He used his positions to make more money for himself, and in 1621 the Parliament found that he was corrupt. He was fined £40,000 and removed from all his jobs. King James overturned the fine, but he was kept as a prisoner in the Tower of London for a while.

Studies

He became best known as a leading thinker in new ways of looking at the world. His writings started and made famous a way of thinking about science. This way of thinking is now called the Baconian method. It is based on looking at the world by making experiments. After watching the results the scientist comes up with an idea to explain what has happened. This idea or hypothesis is then further tested by more experiments. This way of thinking about science is called inductive methodology. In Bacon's time these methods were linked with magic including hermeticism and alchemy. Alchemy was the study of fire, earth, water and air. Alchemists tried to make gold from lead.

Other websites

• Archival material relating to Francis Bacon listed at the UK National Archives
• Francis Bacon entry by Juergen Klein in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Works by Francis Bacon at Project Gutenberg
• The Francis Bacon Society Archived 2019-05-03 at the Wayback Machine
• Contains the New Organon, slightly modified for easier reading
• Francis Bacon of Verulam. Realistic Philosophy and its Age (1857) by Kuno Fischer and John Oxenford in English

Political offices
Preceded by Sir Thomas Egerton	Lord High Chancellor 1617–1621	Succeeded by In Commission
Preceded by Henry Hobart	Attorney General of England and Wales 1613–1617	Succeeded by Henry Yelverton
Parliament of England (to 1707)
Preceded by Miles Sandys	Member of Parliament for Taunton 1586–1588	Succeeded by William Aubrey
Preceded by Arthur Atye	Member of Parliament for Liverpool 1588–1594	Succeeded by Thomas Gerard
Preceded by William Fleetwood	Member of Parliament for Middlesex 1594–1598	Succeeded by Sir John Peyton
Peerage of England
New title Title granted by James I of England	Baron Verulam 1618–1626	Extinct
New title Title granted by James I of England	Viscount St Alban 1621–1626