ANCIENT& not so ancient WISDOM
offering a weekly positive perspective

November 11, 2004

Prosperity is not without many fears and disasters; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.

- Francis Bacon (1561 - 1625) 

Francis Bacon was born January 22, 1561 in London to Sir Nicolas Bacon, the Lord Keeper of Seal of Elisabeth I, and the sister-in-law of Lord Burghley. At age 12, he entered Trinity College Cambridge to study science. He described his experience and his teachers as "Men of sharp wits, shut up in their cells of a few authors, chiefly Aristotle, their Dictator." 

In 1579, at age 18, his father died. Being the youngest son, he was left virtually penniless in contrast to his very wealthy relatives. He switched to a career in law and was made barrister at Gray’s Inn in 1582.  In 1584, at age 23, he was elected to a seat in parliament for Dorsetshire. 

The Earl of Essex choose him as his confidential advisor in 1591, and Bacon took a seat in parliament for Middlesex in 1593. He published his Essays along with Colours of Good and Evil and the Meditationes Sacrae. On February 8, 1601, the Earl of Essex lead a plot to kidnap the queen in an attempt to force her to dismiss his enemies from her court. The leaders were arrested. Bacon was instrumental in securing a guilty verdict at the trial. Rather than appreciate his position and character, Queen Elisabeth grew distrustful of him. 

In 1603, with the death of Queen Elizabeth, Bacon advance with the support of King James I. He was appointed office of solicitor, named treasurer of Gray’s Inn, was appointed attorney general, and on March 7, 1617 was made Lord Keeper of the Seal, the same office his father had held. On January 7, 1618, he was made Lord Chancellor of England, and received the title of Baron Verulam. In 1620, Novum Organum was published, a new method of investigation to replace that of Aristotle’s. 

In 1621, a bitter struggle ensued between King James I and Parliament. Bacon, caught up in the struggle, was charged with bribery and found guilty upon his own admission at trial. He was fined forty thousand pounds, sentenced to the Tower of London, prohibited from holding office for the state, and prohibited from sitting on parliament. The sentence was reduced, no fine was paid, and he spent only four days in the Tower. He was never again to hold office or sit for parliament. 

In 1622, he presented to Prince Charles the History of Henry VII and published Historia Ventorum and Historia Vitae et Mortis. In 1623 and 1624 respectively, he published De Augmentis Scientiarum and Apothegms. 

He died on April 9 from bronchitis that developed from a cold that he caught while experimenting on the effect of cold on the decay of meat. 

Loren Eiseley in The Man Who Saw Through Time, his book about Francis Bacon, remarked that Bacon "...more fully than any man of his time, entertained the idea of the universe as a problem to be solved, examined, meditated upon, rather than as an eternally fixed stage, upon which man walked."

Wishing you comfort and hope.

Sincerely,