The third volume of the Harvard Classics contains:
I vaguely remember the name Francis Bacon from some nerd camp I went to in elementary school, but that's pretty much it. For the same of the blog, I want to tackle him first.
Bacon was one of those rare learners and someone who couldn't quit learning or be satisfied with the results of learning. In college, he met Queen Elizabeth, and made his way up that ever slippery political ladder. He became a lawyer, then attorney general, and eventually after James I took over, finally made it to becoming Lord Chancellor. His fame didn't last long - he ended up in serious debt and his enemies went for the kill, resulting in a charge of 23 counts of corruption. After a large fine, a brief stint in the Tower of London and Bacon not being allowed to run for Parliament ever again, he spent his last few years in disgrace before he died at the age of 65.
How did he die? Well, he was studying the effects of freezing as a way to preserve meat and caught pneumonia. What did you expect from a scientist? His "Baconian Method" became what we know as the Scientific Method - inductive reasoning and building it from the ground up. This may seem like a no brainer, but at the time, science wasn't like that at all. The person who took up the Baconian Method and ran with it was Dr. Thomas Browne, who wrote Religio Medici (The Religion of a Doctor)
The first part of Bacon's contribution to the Harvard Classics was his essays - 59 of them covering everything from "Of Friendship" to "Of Travel." They really reminded me of Marcus Aurelius - words of wisdom with a gentle hand guiding you, nothing forceful. As an avid traveler, I paid the most attention to what he said. "Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education, in the elder, a part of experience." The older I've gotten, the more the experiences matter instead of the checkboxes of things I've seen do. But since Bacon spent a good portion of his adult life in politics, most of his essays cover topics like "Of Negotiating", "Of Seditions and Troubles" and "Of Honor and Reputation."
I liked the essays. I don't know if they qualify as groundbreaking in any way, but they were impressive and I'm glad I read them.
Bacon also wrote The New Atlantis, about a mythical island west of Peru that was a utopian paradise. Bacon, being religious, got to infuse this novel with a fair amount of background. Apparently the island converted to Christianity, and everyone lived in harmony. The university on the island lived out Bacon's ideals for pure and applied sciences. In a way it felt like this was the Star Trek universe - harmony, peace and the betterment of humanity via the sciences. Even though I felt that the book was a bit lame, it was pretty helpful in laying out this ideal system of government along with legal reform. Smarter people than I have argued that The New Atlantis was his utopian dream for North America and that his legal reform led to a contribution to the Napoleonic Code.
After a bit of reading, I gained respect for Bacon. Sure, he may have been either a pederast or a sodomite, but hey, who wasn't during that time? He died massively in debt, but his name is still remembered with reverence almost 400 years later with contributions that laid the groundwork for modern science and perhaps, some modern law.
- Essays, Civil and Moral & The New Atlantis, by Francis Bacon
- Areopagitica & Tractate on Education, by John Milton
- Religio Medici, by Sir Thomas Browne
I vaguely remember the name Francis Bacon from some nerd camp I went to in elementary school, but that's pretty much it. For the same of the blog, I want to tackle him first.
Bacon was one of those rare learners and someone who couldn't quit learning or be satisfied with the results of learning. In college, he met Queen Elizabeth, and made his way up that ever slippery political ladder. He became a lawyer, then attorney general, and eventually after James I took over, finally made it to becoming Lord Chancellor. His fame didn't last long - he ended up in serious debt and his enemies went for the kill, resulting in a charge of 23 counts of corruption. After a large fine, a brief stint in the Tower of London and Bacon not being allowed to run for Parliament ever again, he spent his last few years in disgrace before he died at the age of 65.
How did he die? Well, he was studying the effects of freezing as a way to preserve meat and caught pneumonia. What did you expect from a scientist? His "Baconian Method" became what we know as the Scientific Method - inductive reasoning and building it from the ground up. This may seem like a no brainer, but at the time, science wasn't like that at all. The person who took up the Baconian Method and ran with it was Dr. Thomas Browne, who wrote Religio Medici (The Religion of a Doctor)
The first part of Bacon's contribution to the Harvard Classics was his essays - 59 of them covering everything from "Of Friendship" to "Of Travel." They really reminded me of Marcus Aurelius - words of wisdom with a gentle hand guiding you, nothing forceful. As an avid traveler, I paid the most attention to what he said. "Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education, in the elder, a part of experience." The older I've gotten, the more the experiences matter instead of the checkboxes of things I've seen do. But since Bacon spent a good portion of his adult life in politics, most of his essays cover topics like "Of Negotiating", "Of Seditions and Troubles" and "Of Honor and Reputation."
I liked the essays. I don't know if they qualify as groundbreaking in any way, but they were impressive and I'm glad I read them.
Bacon also wrote The New Atlantis, about a mythical island west of Peru that was a utopian paradise. Bacon, being religious, got to infuse this novel with a fair amount of background. Apparently the island converted to Christianity, and everyone lived in harmony. The university on the island lived out Bacon's ideals for pure and applied sciences. In a way it felt like this was the Star Trek universe - harmony, peace and the betterment of humanity via the sciences. Even though I felt that the book was a bit lame, it was pretty helpful in laying out this ideal system of government along with legal reform. Smarter people than I have argued that The New Atlantis was his utopian dream for North America and that his legal reform led to a contribution to the Napoleonic Code.
After a bit of reading, I gained respect for Bacon. Sure, he may have been either a pederast or a sodomite, but hey, who wasn't during that time? He died massively in debt, but his name is still remembered with reverence almost 400 years later with contributions that laid the groundwork for modern science and perhaps, some modern law.
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