The Advancement of Learning
Bacon, Francis, 1561-1626
English
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Below is a summary of The Advancement of Learning
Transcribed from the 1893 Cassell & Company edition by David Price,
email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING
INTRODUCTION.
"The TVVOO Bookes of Francis Bacon. Of the proficience and
aduancement of Learning, divine and humane. To the King. At
London. Printed for Henrie Tomes, and are to be sould at his shop
at Graies Inne Gate in Holborne. 1605." That was the original
title-page of the book now in the reader's hand--a living book that
led the way to a new world of thought. It was the book in which
Bacon, early in the reign of James the First, prepared the way for a
full setting forth of his New Organon, or instrument of knowledge.
The Organon of Aristotle was a set of treatises in which Aristotle
had written the doctrine of propositions. Study of these treatises
was a chief occupation of young men when they passed from school to
college, and proceeded from Grammar to Logic, the second of the
Seven Sciences. Francis Bacon as a youth of sixteen, at Trinity
College, Cambridge, felt the unfruitfulness of this method of search
after truth. He was the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Queen
Elizabeth's Lord Keeper, and was born at York House, in the Strand,
on the 22nd of January, 1561. His mother was the Lord Keeper's
second wife, one of two sisters, of whom the other married Sir
William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh. Sir Nicholas Bacon had six
children by his former marriage, and by his second wife two sons,
Antony and Francis, of whom Antony was about two years the elder.
The family home was at York Place, and at Gorhambury, near St.
Albans, from which town, in its ancient and its modern style, Bacon
afterwards took his titles of Verulam and St. Albans.
Antony and Francis Bacon went together to Trinity College,
Cambridge, when Antony was fourteen years old and Francis twelve.
Francis remained at Cambridge only until his sixteenth year; and Dr.
Rawley, his chaplain in after-years, reports of him that "whilst he
was commorant in the University, about sixteen years of age (as his
lordship hath been pleased to impart unto myself), he first fell
into dislike of the philosophy of Aristotle; not for the
worthlessness of the author, to whom he would ascribe all high
attributes, but for the unfruitfulness of the way, being a
philosophy (as his lordship used to say) only strong for
disputatious and contentions, but barren of the production of works
for the benefit of the life of man; in which mind he continued to
his dying day." Bacon was sent as a youth of sixteen to Paris with
the ambassador Sir Amyas Paulet, to begin his training for the
public service; but his father's death, in February, 1579, before he
had completed the provision he was making for his youngest children,
obliged him to return to London, and, at the age of eighteen, to
settle down at Gray's Inn to the study of law as a profession. He
was admitted to the outer bar in June, 1582, and about that time, at
the age of twenty-one, wrote a sketch of his conception of a New
Organon that should lead man to more fruitful knowledge, in a little
Latin tract, which he called "Temporis Partus Maximus" ("The
Greatest Birth of Time").
In November, 1584, Bacon took his seat in the House of Commons as
member for Melcombe Regis, in Dorsetshire. In October, 1586, he sat
for Taunton. He was member afterwards for Liverpool; and he was one
of those who petitioned for the speedy execution of Mary Queen of
Scots. In October, 1589, he obtained the reversion of the office of
Clerk of the Council in the Star Chamber, which was worth 1,600
pounds or 2,000 pounds a year; but for the succession to this office
he had to wait until 1608. It had not yet fallen to him when he
wrote his "Two Books of the Advancement of Learning." In the
Parliament that met in February, 1593, Bacon sat as member for
Middlesex. He raised difficulties of procedure in the way of the
grant of a treble subsidy, by just objection to the joining of the
Lords with the Commons in a money grant, and a desire to extend the
time allowed for payment from three years to six; it was, in fact,
extended to four years. The Queen was offended. Francis Bacon and
his brother Antony had attached themselves to the young Earl of
Essex, who was their friend and patron. The office of Attorney-
General became vacant. Essex asked the Queen to appoint Francis
Bacon. The Queen gave the office to Sir Edward Coke, who was
already Solicitor-General, and by nine years Bacon's senior. The
office of Solicitor-General thus became vacant, and that was sought
for Francis Bacon. The Queen, after delay and hesitation, gave it,
in November, 1595, to Serjeant Fleming. The Earl of Essex consoled
his friend by giving him "a piece of land"--Twickenham Park--which
Bacon afterwards sold for 1,800 pounds--equal, say, to 12,000 pounds
in present buying power. In 1597 Bacon was returned to Parliament
as member for Ipswich, and in that year he was hoping to marry the
rich widow of Sir William Hatton, Essex helping; but the lady
married, in the next year, Sir Edward Coke. It was in 1597 that
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