Lord Bacon and the Will to Know

Do you believe in things you do not understand? Do you believe in these things because it's easier than finding a way to understand? Are you bothered by your lack of understanding?

Those not bothered by their lack of understanding have very little in common with Francis Bacon. Lord Bacon (I always call him that in the spirit of Lord Vader) knew there were things he didn't understand. He thought there was a way to understand them, a method for discovering the true laws of the universe. Ruthless in his pursuit of power, Lord Bacon was ruthless, too, in his pursuit of knowledge. On the one hand, he acted as prosecutor against his former friend, winning the death penalty; on the other, he recommended that one way to advance our understanding of physiology would be to dissect live animals. Alexander Pope characterized Bacon as "the wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind." For his ruthlessness in the pursuit of power we may deplore him. For his ruthlessness in pursuit of knowledge we may admire him even if we would not emulate him. With Bacon, however, we cannot separate the one pursuit from the other.

Reading Bacon underscores his greatness of intellect and the power of the aphorism. One of Bacon's aphorisms that brought together his two loves is found in the opening of his Novum Organum: "Human power and human knowledge meet in one." Meditate on it. Knowledge is power is an aphorism we bandy about with great nonchalance, but it is dangerous idea. Bacon goes on, "for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule." That last bit is rendered better for us by Jonathan Bennett: "The only way to command nature is to obey it; and something that functions as the cause in thinking about a process functions as the rule in the process itself."

In other words, the way we think determines what we discover and what we know. I know this is true, even if I am more or less weak in applying it in my own life. It is a rather terrible idea. That said, perhaps my aspirations are lower than Bacon's. Most days I would not command nature. The impulse, however, is truer and mightier than I would like to admit. After all, getting out of bed in the morning is to command nature and I believe in the power of the intellect to change the universe.

Thankfully Bacon did not rest only on aphorisms, for he is master of the essay, perhaps even the greatest essayist of the English speaking peoples. I re-read a number of these essays recently thanks to my friend Andrew. He is a high school student here in Duluth and had to present an essay in class. He asked me for recommendations and I sent him to Bacon. Personally, I wish scholarly essays today were this interesting and this short. Thirty pages is too tedious for me. And observe how crisp his prose is, from the first sentences of a few essays:

Of Death: Men fear death, as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.

Of Discourse: Some in their discourse desire rather commendation of wit, in being able to hold all arguments, than of judgment, in discerning what is true; as if it were praise to know what might be said, and not what should be thought.

Of Riches: I cannot call riches better than the baggage of virtue.

The essay that did the most for me on this reading was Bacon's essay "Of Atheism," wherein he writes, "It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion." He goes on, "They that deny God destroy man's nobility; for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature." Base and ignoble indeed.

Now, read Bacon.