THE CHARACTER OF FRANCIS BACON

THE CHARACTER OF FRANCIS BACON

Long is of the view that, in Bacon we see;
“One of those complex and contradictory natures which are the despair of the biographer”
Bacon had a dual personality. He was mental giant but a moral dwarf. It was this very complexity of Bacon’s character which pope stressed in his usual neat, epigrammatic manner, when he wrote,
“If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined,
The Wisest, Brightest, Meanest of mankind”
The facts of Bacon’s life amply bear out that he was the brightest of mankind. Though he was born with the silver spoon in his mouth, he was left unprovided and friendless at the threshold of his career. His father died and there was no one to help him to get settled in life. In those days of intrigues and cunning party politics, nobody could hope to make his mark unless he enjoyed the patronage of the influential. Despite such handicaps, Bacon’s rise to eminence was meteoric. As a lawyer he became immediately successful. His knowledge of law and power of pleading became widely known and it was almost at the beginning of his parliamentary career that Jonson wrote,


“No man ever spoke more neatly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness in what he uttered”
The vastness of Bacon’s mind is amazing. His hearers could not cough or look aside from him without loss. He commanded where he spoke; and had his judges angry and pleased at his direction. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man, that heard him, was that he should make an end. He was knighted in 1603, made Solicitor General in 1607, Attorney General I 1613, Lord Keeper in 1617, Lord Chancellor in 1618 and Viscount St. Albans in 1621. This immense and rapid success, in spite of bitter enemies and hostilities, can never be attained without wisdom and brightness. Skemp says, while he was discussing the Bacon’s character,


“Bacon stands second in intellectual power only to Shakespeare”
A man of towering intellect, he could dare to take all knowledge to be his province. It is impossible to regard even the outline of his vast work. He worked endlessly to penetrate the secrets of nature, fathered the inductive system of philosophy, and thus paved the way for emergence of modern science. Many of his principles may sound rudimentary to us, but in Bacon’s time they were original and had for reaching consequences. He revolutionized the entire concept of scientific research and ushered in the era of modernism. His head was ever buzzing with huge schemes- the pacification of unhappy Ireland, the simplification of England law, the reform of the church, the study of the nature, and the establishment of a new philosophy. Summarizing his scientific achievements Bush writes,


“He not only summoned men to research, he brought the Cinderella of science out of her partial obscurity and enthroned her as the queen of the world”

In the field of literature also his attainments are equally brilliant. He is the father of English essay. No doubt he borrowed the term and the thing from French Montaigne, but he filled it with the products of his own brain. His style is marvelous. It is terse and pithy, packed with thought, in an age that used endless circumlocution. He created a new style of writing- the modern style- and may very well be called the father of modern English prose. His observation was minute and accurate and his essays cover a wide variety of subjects suggested by the life of a man around him. Bacon was one of the greatest scholars of his time and he was as well read in classical literature and history, as in science, philosophy and law. He was as well familiar with the intricacies of politics as with those of trade and commerce. There was no sphere of knowledge or of life in which he did not excel. In many aspects, he was certainly the meanest of mankind.

Therefore J.F Selby says that,

“He had great brain; not a great soul”
Though he was raised to the highest position in the land, he could bend to the acceptance of the pettiest sums as bribes. He was fond of an ostentatious style of living, kept a large number of servants and was lavish of in matters of food and dress. The result; he was always in need and adopted highly corrupt questionable means to increase his income. He was profuse and greedy, a born intriguer and tuft-hunter, an extremely cunning, selfish and callous individual. His essays clearly reveal that his philosophy of life was Machiavellian. Hudson also agrees that he sacrificed his character for the sake of wealth and power and for the satisfaction of worldly ambitions. Here Hudson critically remark,

“His morals were of the narrowest expediency and utilitarianism”


Many of his biographers, including Mr. Spedding, have tried to defend the conduct of Bacon. But the only defense which they have been able to put forth is that his faults were the faults of age, that he was merely the child of his age. It was an age in which the power was concentrated in the hands of a few; intrigue and opportunism were the orders of the days, friendships were violated and sides changed as one’s interests demanded, and even the greatest in the land accepted bribes. Living in such an age, Bacon did what he found others doing, and what he realized was necessary to get success. He therefore, sacrificed his ideals, to achieve the aim dear to him. Summarizing his estimate of Bacon’s character, Long writes,


“Bacon was apparently one of those double natures that only God is capable to judge, because of strange mixture of intellectual strength and moral weakness that is in them”
As we read his essays, we come to know that he was an honest man corrupted by the environment in which he lived. We are very well inclined to believe what Bacon said of himself, “He was the brightest, wisest, and meanest of mankind.