Hancock 2
Daniel Hancock
History UA-22: Renaissance and Early Modern Europe
Prof. Daniel Jüette
11/29/2018
Francis Bacon: The Scientific Revolution
For a long time, the Church had coexisted with science, but the rise of the humanistic movement and the introduction of many varying forms of Christianity caused the church to turn its back on scientific study which formed a great rift between the fields of thought. The reason for this divide is that the church viewed science as a hostile alternative to the way they explain things. Because of this newfound alienation between the two different studies, the world was led into what is known as the Scientific Revolution. People like Francis Bacon who “found means to become a great philosopher, a good historian, and an elegant writer” (Letters On The English) believed that science and religion served two different functions. He thought that science should not be seen as something that is threatening to overthrow Christianity (he himself was religious). Instead, he had the thought that science should be used as a catalyst for human prosperity, completely separate from religion. Francis Bacon must have felt like a complete outsider forced to live among people. He noticed that people have been thinking about things wrong for a long time. Not only did he have a vision of what the ideal society should look like; he had what he thought was a solution for all of humanity’s problems. Not only did he know where society needed to go, but he knew how to get there.
With so much ambiguity about what the “truth” was, Europeans at the time increasingly looked for knowledge of all sorts. Bacon says in one of his works that all humans desire to know things because “knowledge itself is a power” (Meditationes Sacrae: On Hypocrisy). He says that they want to know things for a myriad of reasons, usually based in selfishness. They usually want to know things for personal ambition, glory, or as a distraction from personal life. But, the pursuit of knowledge in the time of Francis Bacon was rather broad. Knowledge was classified as any act or behavior that was delving into uncharted territory in some way. Christopher Columbus, for example, was considered a “seeker of knowledge”, because he was sailing his ship into uncharted territories and seemingly gaining knowledge. Certain interpreters of theology were also considered seekers of knowledge at the time. While they wouldn’t be considered such pioneers of information today, they were attributed to this during the time of Francis Bacon. When Bacon looked at the people of his time who were considered such “knowledge seekers” he thought they had it all wrong. Not only were they looking for knowledge in the wrong way, but they were looking for all the wrong reasons.
Bacon breaks down all the different types of people (in The New Organon) in his day that were pursuers of knowledge and all their different forms and fields. One of the most obvious ones are the people he called the “reasoners” who, above all else, were philosophers. These were people who fought to find knowledge using, well, reason. However, this sort of knowledge attainment came by way of argumentation until the conjuration of information arose from within. It wasn’t an experiment that offered new insight. They simply looked within their own minds, argued with each other about the contents, and they arrived at what they thought of as “knowledge.”
Another prevalent type of person that Bacon talks about were the ones of the superstitious variety. These people were not just the various faith-based thinkers of the time, but they were the magicians, street showmen who could miraculously heal ailments with their “magic,” and others alike. It sounds ridiculous by today's standards, but so little was known about this seemingly “magical realm” and “supernatural powers.” They were seen as seekers of knowledge because they were performing acts that the people couldn’t explain and they were delving into that uncharted territory. They were seen as men and women who were harnessing the power of nature for the betterment of humanity. These “magicians” and reasoners were seen as people who were going on the quest of mastering nature. Bacon uses a great metaphor to describe the two: “the men of experiment (magicians) are like the ant, they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance” (The New Organon: 95). To Bacon, however, both of these methods are flawed. The true pursuit of knowledge shouldn’t be as a spider or an ant, but rather a bee. He writes that “the bee takes a middle course: it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and of the field but transforms and digests it by a power of its own” (The New Organon: 95). Like the bee making honey, the pursuer of knowledge should discover something beneficial to all of mankind, not just the person that “found” the knowledge, which is what the problem was with these magicians and reasoners who were doing it for personal affirmance and monetary gain.
Bacon had a better way of looking for knowledge; he thought that we should look for negative instances in things. For example, instead of doing ten experiments on plants in which you give each varying levels of sunlight and then drawing the conclusion that all plants need sunlight to grow, it is better to look for instances in which plants don’t need sunlight. This was the genius of Francis Bacon. He pinpointed and recognized the faults in the way people think about things that prevented them from arriving at the source of true knowledge. Because of the selfish motives that typically underly why people seek knowledge in the first place, Bacon thought that science shouldn’t be relegated by a singular person doing “magic tricks” on a street corner, but it should be a collaborative effort funded by the government. After all, what could possibly improve the lives of a state’s citizens better than scientific progress?
Bacon thought it was terrifying that somebody could simply find the cure for an ailment such as cancer, or some other integral piece of information and then keep it to themselves reveling in the glory of their discovery. In theory, if instead, the government-funded agencies found out these important pieces of information, it wouldn’t be something that the selfish could profit from, it would be public domain. This wasn’t the only vision Bacon had for society or the government. He believed that the utopian society that he saw had science at the core, which would make all of humanity’s struggles almost obsolete. Through this, he pinpointed the types of bias that prevent humans from thinking in a scientific way. He wrote that “the mind of man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass, wherein the beams of things should reflect according to their true incidence; nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of superstition and imposture if it be not delivered and reduced. For this purpose, let us consider the false appearances that are imposed upon us by the general nature of the mind” (The Advancement of Learning II (9)). The first bias known as the “idols of the mind” described that the mind of humans does not always reason in the correct way and that the first step to scientific progress has to begin with this understanding. The second is the “idols of the tribe” (The New Organon: 41). This described the false idea that humans’ basic and natural instincts were correct, this impression that people had muddled the factual nature of things. The third is the “idols of the cave” (The New Organon: 42), and this one focused on the false perceptions that stemmed from people’s personal devotions and feelings that in turn led to the misunderstanding of the true workings of nature. The third is the “idols of the marketplace” (The New Organon: 43) which breaks down the false significance between true thoughts and the expressive words used to convey the thoughts. The final is that of the “idols of the theatre” (The New Organon: 44). This final one describes how masses of people are so quick to agree with supposed intellectuals despite the fact that the teachings could be misleading.
The reason why Francis Bacon, “the father of experimental philosophy” (Letters On The English), was such an integral figure to the scientific revolution is because he had a completely different term of thought from everyone else. He was not afraid to stand up and question the supposed truths that were being force-fed to society. Instead, he went on a quest for true knowledge and science, thereby swatting down those who were leading humanity astray. What Bacon urges people like us to do is to not allow ourselves to fall into a biased way of thinking, simply because we are born into it and because it is easy to go along with. Instead, it is the duty of all those focused on the progression and betterment of man to think critically, independently, and most importantly scientifically, rather than falling in line with something that simply “could” make sense.
Works Cited
Bacon, Francis. “The Advancement of Learning.” Philosophy Index, Bacon, 2 Apr. 2002, www.philosophy-index.com/bacon/advancement-learning/ii-xiv.php. Second Book
Bacon, Francis. “The New Organon: or True Directions Concerning the Interpretation of Nature.” Early Modern Texts, Jonathan Bennet, 5 Feb. 2005, www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/bacon1620.pdf. Book I 1-177
Bacon, Francis. “Meditationes Sacrae.”Wikisource, the Free Online Library, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 1 Mar. 2012, en.wikisource.org/wiki/Meditationes_sacrae. On Hypocrisy
Voltaire. Letters on the English (Lettres Philosophiques). P.F. Collier & Son Co., 1910, newclasses.nyu.edu/access/content/group/fba82544-a500-42c7-9196-685ab3f0f149/Readings for Week 11/Voltaire.pdf. On Bacon & Newton