Assignment

on
Francis Bacon: A Man of Practical Wisdom

Course code: ELI-106

Course title: Introduction to Non-

Fictional Prose

Submitted to:

Kaniz Ummey Rumana,

Lecturer,
Department of English,
LEADING UNIVERSITY,
SYLHET.

Submitted by:
Zahid Hussain Md- Jakir Masum
ID no: 0801030009
Third semester, First year,
Department of English,
LEADING UNIVERSITY,
SYLHET.

Date of submission: 21 December 2008 AD

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 Acknowledgement
I would like to express my heartiest gratitude to my
honourable course coordinator of ELA-106 (Non-Fictional Prose)
Ms. Kaniz Ummey Rumana, Lecturer of Department of English,
Leading University, Sylhet for allowing me to work under his
supervision; and for his valuable implication, guidance and
encouragement.

- Zahid Hussain Md- Jakir

Masum,
ID no: 080103009,
Third semester, First year,
Department of English,
Leading University, Sylhet.

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 Francis Bacon: A Man of Practical Wisdom

Sir Francis Bacon was an English essayist, lawyer, historian,

statesman, intellectual reformer, philosopher, and champion of
modern science. Early in his career he claimed “all knowledge as
his province” and afterwards dedicated himself to a wholesale
revaluation and re-structuring of traditional learning. To take the
place of the established tradition (a miscellany of Scholasticism,
humanism, and natural magic), he proposed an entirely new
system based on empirical and inductive principles and the active
development of new arts and inventions, a system whose ultimate
goal would be the production of practical knowledge for “the use
and benefit of men” and the relief of the human condition.

He was born in London in 1561 to a prominent and well-

connected family. His parents were Sir Nicholas Bacon, the Lord
Keeper of the Seal, and Lady Anne Cooke, daughter of Sir Anthony
Cooke, a knight and one-time tutor to the royal family. Lady Anne
was a learned woman in her own right, having acquired Greek and
Latin as well as Italian and French. She was a sister-in-law both to
Sir Thomas Hoby, the esteemed English translator of Castiglione,
and to Sir William Cecil, Lord Treasurer, chief counsellor to
Elizabeth-I.

He was educated at home at the family estate at

Gorhambury in Herfordshire. At the age of just twelve in 1573, he
entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where the stodgy Scholastic
curriculum triggered his lifelong opposition to Aristotelianism.
In 1576 Bacon began reading law at Gray’s Inn. Yet only a
year later he interrupted his studies in order to take a position in
the diplomatic service in France as an assistant to the
ambassador. In 1579, while he was still in France, his father died,
leaving him virtually without support.
Bacon completed his law degree in 1582, and in 1588 he was
named lecturer in legal studies at Gray’s Inn. In the meantime, he
was elected to Parliament in 1584 as a member for Melcombe in
Dorsetshire. He would remain in Parliament as a representative for
various constituencies for the next 36 years.
In 1603, James-I succeeded Elizabeth, and Bacon’s prospects
for advancement dramatically improved. After being knighted by
the king, he swiftly ascended the ladder of state and from 1604
-1618 filled a succession of high-profile advisory positions.
In 1621 he was arrested and charged with bribery. After

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pleading guilty, he was heavily fined and sentenced to a prison
term in the Tower of London. Although the fine was later waived
and Bacon spent only four days in the Tower, he was never
allowed to sit in Parliament or hold political office again.
Bacon spent his remaining years working with renewed
determination on his lifelong project: the reform of learning and
the establishment of an intellectual community dedicated to the
discovery of scientific knowledge for the “use and benefit of men.”
The former Lord Chancellor died on 9 April 1626, supposedly of a
cold or pneumonia contracted while testing his theory of the
preservative and insulating properties of snow.

Bacon’s style, though elegant, is by no means as simple as it

seems or as it is often described. In fact it is actually a fairly
complex affair that achieves its air of ease and clarity more
through its balanced cadences, natural metaphors, and carefully
arranged symmetries than through the use of plain words,
commonplace ideas, and straightforward syntax. In this connection
it is noteworthy that in the revised versions of the essays Bacon
seems to have deliberately disrupted many of his earlier balanced
effects to produce a style that is actually more jagged and, in
effect, more challenging to the casual reader.

Bacon was a man of full and varied activity. He have devote to

the intellectual activity inaugurated by the advancement of
learning and brought a full maturity in the Novum Organum. In the
advancement of learning he had surveyed the full field of learning
and noted all defects and deficiencies. These were rectifying in the
Instauratio Magna of learning. Most of his scientific and philosophic
works were contributions or drafts towards this. The method was
outlined in the Novum Organum. Besides, his monumental
philosophic and scientific works, his specifically literary
productions seem few. The New Atlantis is practically related
worth his philosophic and social ideals in the form of Utopian
romance.
In the Promos we find both for and against argument in a given
measure. For example- “High birth is the wreath with men are
crowned by time’ and ‘Nobility withdraws virtue from envy, and
commends it to favour,” etc. As well as against “Nobility has
seldom sprung from virtue; virtue still more rarely from nobility.’
‘In running their race, men of birth look back tooo often, which is
the mark of a bad runner.” etc.
His earliest essays- especially when read in the original,
unrevised versions- seem little more than collections of maximum
like sentences: sometimes actual quotations, more often
memorable epigrammatic expressions of traditional or universal
sentiments.

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 Bacon’s essays have often suffered by a misguided comparison
with Montaigne’s or Lamb’s. Both Montaigne and Bacon start with
the commonplace book- other men’s word, but culled with one’s
own taste and nourishing one’s own observations. Montaigne
proceeds to develop this personal element. To Bacon this would
have appeared a lamentable surrender what he called the ‘idols of
the cave.’ He extracts from his commonplace-book its content of
impersonal wisdom, and builds upon that. While Lambian essays
have far less immediate appeal; but perhaps a more broad-based
and lasting validity.
Bacon’s essays have often been described as a visionary of
science rather than an actual scientist. Bacon’s achievement fell
short of his own dream, even if his successors far exceeded it;
what unifies and sustains his work imaginative fervour of his
version, not the range or precision o fits scientific content.
Many of the bacon’s essays raise issues fundamental to the era.
For example, of revenge explores the notion of revenge, which
frequently featured in the period and is dominant in Elizabethan
and Jacobean drama. ‘Revenge is a kind of wild justice,’ he begins.
The Old Testament had apparently sanctioned revenge but, as
Bacon shows, if justice is to be redefined, the wildness of revenge
becomes dangerous.

In dedicating the advancement of learning to king James 1 in

1665, he had said the flattery on with a trawling in comparing the
king to ancient heremes, the possessor of triplicity of command.
His aim in 1605 seems to encourage James to support some solid
work; fixed memorial and immortal monument. The advancement
of learning attempted to draw a distinction between two kinds of
truth, a theological truth and a scientific truth.

Bacon’s essays have often been described as a visionary of

science rather than an actual scientist. Bacon’s achievement fell
short of his own dream, even if his successors far exceeded it;
what unifies and sustains his work imaginative fervour of his
version, not the range or precision o fits scientific content.
The essay, Of studies, contains many concepts based on the
writer's observation on human's mind. This essay contains his
logical and experimental approach. It is philosophical and moral.
There is a combination of abstract idea with actual images in this
essay. In this essay, Study is a good habit. From three points of
view study of books is useful. It can be a source of pleasure, it can
gather ornamental value, and it makes us able to know something
or be successful. Besides spending too much time on reading is
sluggish. People should not being bookworms. Natural ability and
judgment can be developed by knowledge of books and
experience. Different kinds of people read books for different
purpose. Crafty men ignore studies, simple men respect, but wise

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men utilize in their practical life with experience and observation.
Study of books is not to make an argument and proof anything
wrong as well as not to believe anything without observation. We
should study, observe and then consider. The writer suggests us to
read any book considering it importance. We should read various
types of books and combine reading with conversation and writing,
by this way we can develop our personality. “Reading maketh a
full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.” This
statement shows how realistic he in his approach.
In the essay, Of Truth Bacon says that truth is the supreme
good for human beings. He describes the inquiry of truth as the
wooing of it, the knowledge of truth as the presence of it, and the
belief of truth as the enjoying of it. Making an obvious reference to
the Bible. Bacon says that the first things created by God were
light and the final thing created by Him was the rational faculty
that He bestowed upon man. First God created light upon matter
or chaos: then He breathed light into the-face of man; and
afterwards. He has always been breathing light into the face of
those whom He chooses for His special favour. Bacon quotes
Lucretius who said that the greatest pleasure for a man was the
realization of truth and that, standing upon the vantage ground of
truth, a man could survey the errors, falsehoods, and follies
prevailing in the world. All these, we might say, are the
observations of a philosopher-cum-moralist. Bacon's object in
writing this essay is manifestly to instil into the minds of his
readers a love of truth. A man's mind, says he, should turn upon
the "Poles of truth". Falsehood brings nothing but disgrace.
Quoting Montaigne, he says that. In telling a lie. a man is brave
towards God but coward towards his fellow-men. He warns human
beings against the punishment, which descends upon them on the
doomsday for the falsehoods that they indulge in or practice.
The essay, Of Great Place, contains a large number of moral
precepts but these moral precepts are noted, are synonymous
with worldly wisdom. In seeking power, says Bacon, a man loses
his liberty. Men in high positions, he observes rightly, derive much
of their happiness only from hearing that other people envy them
for the positions they are holding. Like a true moralist, he writes:
“In place there is licence to do good and evil, whereof the latter is
a curse; for in evil, the best condition is not to will, second not
can.” The whole purpose of a man’s efforts should, according to
Bacon, be meritorious works. Noble performance, he points out,
raises a man almost to the status of God. Bacon also warns men of
authority against the vices which are likely beset them. There is
plenty of worldly wisdom in the guidelines of conduct which he
Jays down for men in high positions. No man in a high position will
come a cropper if lie follows the advice offered by Bacon. But
Bacon teaches no moral idealism and no ideal morality. In fact he
is willing to come to terms with morality for the sake of worldly

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success. For instance, he clearly admits that a man may have to
adopt objectionable methods in order to attain a position of high
authority. He also approves of a man’s joining a group or a faction
in order to enhance his worldly prospects though he suggests that,
after a man has achieved the desired end, he should become
neutral. This is how lie writes in this connection. ‘‘All rising to great
place is by a winding stair; and if there be factions, it is good to
side a man’s self whilst he is in the rising, and to balance himself
when he is placed.” Even when Bacon urges a high official not to
speak ill of his predecessor, lie does so not in the interest of high
morality but because there will be unpleasant consequences for
the man who does not follow this advice. In other words, Bacon
tries to bring about a compromise between morality and the
demands of worldly success.
The essay, Of Friendship, is the work of a pure utilitarian.
Bacon does not speak of friendship in terms of an emotional bond
intimately linking two persons. I- makes a purely worldly approach
to the subject. He gives us the ‘‘uses’’ of friendship. A friend
enables us to give an outlet to our ‘suppressed discontents. A
friend clarifies our understanding. The advice given by a friend is
most reliable. A friend can speak or act on our behalf in situations
in which we ourselves cannot speak or act. There is no idealism
involved in all this. Bacon seems to suggest that we need friends
only for worldly happiness and worldly good. To put it more
bluntly, lie regards pure selfishness as the basis of friendship. This
is an essay that clearly shows that Bacon’s wisdom is of a cynical
kind, and that his morality is determined by purely utilitarian
considerations. He does not speak of the emotional or moral
aspect of friendship at all.
Bacon makes a utilitarian approach even to studies. In his
essay on this subject he speaks of the “pleasure” of studying only
to forget it. Nor does he emphasize learning for its own sake. He
wants studies to be supplemented by practical experience so that
a man may make the best use of both to attain worldly success.
Wise men, according to him, are those who put their studies to
practical use. He even recommends the study of books “by
deputy” and extracts being made of books by others, though he
recommends this practice in the case of only the meaner books.
He also points out that different branches of study have different
effects on the human mind and speaks of curing different mental
defects by means of an appropriate choice of studies, Bacon here
becomes almost ridiculous by his reducing the whole thing to a
formula as if a man whose wits are wandering could really achieve
powers of concentration by being made to study mathematics.
Bacon forgets that everybody does not have an aptitude for
mathematics or for any other particular branch of study. But it is
Bacon the man of the world who speaks here, not the true scholar

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that he really was. He allows his scholarship and his philosophy to
be pushed into the background by his worldly enthusiasm.
In the essay, of Marriage and Single Life, Bacon's wisdom,
again, is not of the profound or philosophical variety it is worldly
wisdom and much of this wisdom is cynical. The very opening
sentence of this essay is cynical because Bacon here expresses
the view that a married man with children cannot undertake great
enterprises: "He that hath wife and children hath given hostages
to fortune." And he goes on to say, what is certainly not true, that
the "best works and of greatest merit for the public have
proceeded from the unmarried or childless men." As in the case of
Friendship; Bacon forgets the emotional element, and in this case
also the passionate element which generally enters into marriage.
What could be more utilitarian than the remark that a wife is a
mistress when the husband is young, that she is a companion
when he enters middle age, and that she is is a nurse when he
grows old? He wants soldiers to be married because then they will
fight better! He thinks that by getting married a dishonest judge
will become honest!
The essay, Of Suitors that completely exposes Bacon. He
certainly indulges in a lot of moralizing here. For instance, he
disapproves of persons who undertake suits without any real
intention to have them granted he disapproves of a man giving
false hopes to a petitioner whose suit he has undertaken; and so
on. But he comes to terms with morality when he suggests that if
a patron wants to favour the undeserving of the two parties in a
legal case, he should bring about a compromise between the two
parties instead of pronouncing the judgment in favour of the
deserving person. Bacon here does not categorically reject the
case of the undeserving person: on the contrary, he wants the
undeserving person to be accommodated. Again, he goes on to
say that if a patron wants to appoint a less deserving candidate to
a post, he should do so without passing adverse remarks against
the character of the more deserving applicant. Here is a great
moralist willingly condoning a patron's action in appointing a less
deserving candidate to a post which lies in his patronage!

Bacon’s pragmatism shows the flexibility of his principles,

suitably adapted to the individual case also. In ‘Of Marriage and
Single Life’, the advantages of married life are variously computed
for different professions and conditions of men the morality of
wealth differs with the method by which riches are acquired. The
justification of revenge also varies according to circumstance. The
rejection of a steam-rolling abstract principle this insistence on a
constant moral alertness in the individual to judge his particular
case. In ‘Of Ambition’ ambition is considered as a factor in
practical affairs. The psychological aspects of ambition are
considered as a means of end. So in ‘Of boldness, of vain-glory, of

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deformity the qualities in questions are considered eternally,
clinically, with little moral judgment, and little feeling for the
character who embody these qualities.
The silent pragmatism can relax into genuine compassion:
‘The joys of parents are secret; and so are their grief and fears.
They cannot utter the one; nor they will not utter the other.’ (Of
parents and children)
or humorous appreciation of human foible:
Chaste women are often proud and forward, as presuming upon
the merit of her chastity. (Of marriage and single life)
or an extreme of self-sacrifice;
‘…why should I be angry with a man, for loving himself better
than me?’ (Of revenge)

Bacon was familiar with the daily details of administration as

with principles and ideals. The influence of Machiavelli is obvious,
but Bacon handles his Machiavellian tenets with the ease of ‘Of
experience’, whereby a political principle comes garbed in the
readiness of common examples and applications, and is frequently
tempered by moral scruple or humane sympathy. Machiavelli
writers with a more abstract, academic single-mindedness. Most of
his examples are from history. Bacon also cites from history but
his arguments mostly should say without some exclusion he draws
mainly by his experience.

He does indeed profess to value ‘what should be thought’

rather than ‘what might be said’; but he is patently preoccupied
with the aim of impressing, pleasing and influencing people. The
dance image of ‘Of discourse’ suggests this courtly grace. The
intellectual benefits of conversation are made clearer in ‘Of
studies’ in the praise of conference. Elsewhere, he prizes
conference even above private study. Even so, the full activity of
reading, discussion and writing seems to be considered only as
one of the many exercises that the versatile courtier must
perform. Bacon explicitly shuns the humour of a scholar; he wises
to correct his studies by experience and then use them directly;
and he proposes that one plan one’s studies so as to cure one’s
deficiencies and produce a balanced and versatile mind. The type
of study described in the essay will hardly lead to advancement of
learning, let alone n instauration. It will only provide the man of
the world with his necessary intellectual equipment.
Bacon permits himself a relaxed, unreflecting, contemplative
delight. We must not skim lightly over the lists: if we pause to
consider the identity and nature of each flower he mentions, we
will see how sensitive he was to colour and scent, how keenly alive
to growth and change in nature. How he arranges his garden
letting his luxuries imagination indulge in every plant and
ornament he could conceive.

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 There is no doubt that Bacon’s essays are full of wisdom.
Worldly wisdom means the necessary of achieving worldly
success. It does not imply any deep philosophy or any ideal
morality. Simply it means for the art or the technique of a man
that should he employ to be successful in his practical life. Bacon’s
essays are employing this kind of wisdom. He intended his essays
to provide guidance to his reader as could help them in attaining
success in civil life. His approaches in essays are practical and he
has emphasized the practical and rational management of human
affairs. The wisdom is won by observation and that is possible
when a man sees much and judges his experience with a shrewd
and contemplative mind. Bacon tries to satisfy needs of human life
with the practical wisdom and philosophical speculations on the
various aspects of human life and the world. He has made his aim
clear in his essay with the clarity of vision.
Bacon does not stray away from the subject that he places
before himself. There are no digressions or divagations in his
essays, nothing irrelevant to the subject mater. He put the ideas
together I his essays with a random, we cannot claim that an
essay by Bacon is a structural unity. He does not allow himself to
any loiter and roam. There is no tight connection between the
various ideas that is why we cannot describe his essays as well-
knit compositions. His essays consists a series of counsels to the
people of ambition that are all moral lessons. His practical
approaches infuse in his generalizations and element of
universality and they appeal to the human heart of all ages and
places. Such statements as “Reading maketh a full man;
conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.” (Of Studies)
“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some
few to be chewed and digested.” (Of Studies) “For there is no man,
the imparth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more; and no
man that imparth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less.”
(Of Friendship) “…the best receipt (best, I say, to work, and best to
take) is the admonition of a friend.” (Of Friendship) “…Love is over
matter of comedies, and now and then of tragedies; but in life it
doth much mischief; sometimes like a fury.” (Of Love) are
examples of wisdom of Bacon’s practical wisdom that have earned
from experience of life.
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 References
1) Books:
a) Bacon’s Works and Letters and Life, 14 volumes.
b) Francis Bacon: His Career and His thought.
- Anderson.
c) The experience of Bacon’s Essays.
- Fish, Stanley.
d) Francis Bacon and Modernity.
- Whitney, Charles.
e) Francis Bacon: from Magic to Science.
- Rossi, Paolo.
f) The Short Oxford History of English Literature.
- Andrew Sunders.
g) The Oxford Book of English Verse.
- William J. Long.

2) Websites:
h) www.trivia-library.com
i) www.wikiquote.org
j) www.bookrags.com
k) www.wekianswers.com
l) www.tutor.com
m)www.assets.cambridge.org

3) Research papers:
a) Delia Bacon.
b) Apostle of Protest
-W. Owen.

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