Sunday, July 22, 2012

Francis Bacon and Science

"Frontspiece to 'The History of Royal-Society of London', picturing Bacon (in the right) among the founding influences of the Society. National Portrait Gallery, London

Science

Bacon's ideas were influential in the 1630s and 1650s among scholars, in particular Sir Thomas Browne, who in his encyclopaedia Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646–1672) frequently adheres to a Baconian approach to his scientific enquiries. During the Restoration, Bacon was commonly invoked as a guiding spirit of the Royal Society founded under Charles II in 1660.[37][38] In the nineteenth century his emphasis on induction was revived and developed by William Whewell, among others. He has been reputed as the "Father of Experimental Science".[39]
Bacon is also considered to be the philosophical influence behind the dawning of the Industrial age. In his works, Bacon called for a "spring of a progeny of inventions, which shall overcome, to some extent, and subdue our needs and miseries",[40] always proposing that all scientific work should be done for charitable purposes, as matter of alleviating mankind's misery, and that therefore science should be practical and have as purpose the inventing of useful things for the improvement of mankind's estate. This changed the course of science in history, from a merely contemplative state, as it was found in ancient and medieval ages, to a practical, inventive state - that would have eventually led to the inventions that made possible the Industrial Revolutions of the following centuries.[41]
The Industrial Revolution marks a major turning point in history. In the two centuries following 1800, the world's average per capita income increased over tenfold, while the world's population increased over sixfold.[42] In the words of Nobel Prize winner Robert E. Lucas, Jr., "For the first time in history, the living standards of the masses of ordinary people have begun to undergo sustained growth ... Nothing remotely like this economic behavior has happened before".[43]
He also wrote a long treatise on Medicine, History of Life and Death,[44] with natural and experimental observations for the prolongation of life.
For one of his biographers, Hepworth Dixon, Bacon's influence in modern world is so great that every man who rides in a train, sends a telegram, follows a steam plough, sits in an easy chair, crosses the channel or the Atlantic, eats a good dinner, enjoys a beautiful garden, or undergoes a painless surgical operation, owes him something.[45]

North America

Some authors[who?] believe that Bacon's vision for a Utopian New World in North America was laid out in his novel New Atlantis, which depicts a mythical island, Bensalem, located somewhere between Peru and Japan. In this work he depicted a land where there would be freedom of religion - showing a Jew treated fairly and equally in an island of Christians, but it has been debated whether this work had influenced others reforms, such as greater rights for women, the abolition of slavery, elimination of debtors' prisons, separation of church and state, and freedom of political expression,[46][47][48][49] although there is no hint of these reforms in The New Atlantis itself. His propositions of legal reform (which were not established in his life time), though, are considered to have been one of the influences behind the Napoleonic Code,[50] and therefore could show some resemblance with or influence in the drafting of other liberal constitutions that came in the centuries after Bacon's lifetime, such as the American.
A Newfoundland stamp which reads "Lord Bacon - the guiding spirit in colonization scheme
Francis Bacon played a leading role in creating the British colonies, especially in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Newfoundland in northeastern Canada. His government report on "The Virginia Colony" was submitted in 1609. In 1610 Bacon and his associates received a charter from the king to form the Tresurer and the Companye of Adventurers and planter of the Cittye of London and Bristoll for the Collonye or plantacon in Newfoundland[51] and sent John Guy to found a colony there. In 1910 Newfoundland issued a postage stamp to commemorate Bacon's role in establishing the province. The stamp describes Bacon as, "the guiding spirit in Colonization Schemes in 1610."[18] Moreover, some scholars believe he was largely responsible for the drafting, in 1609 and 1612, of two charters of government for the Virginia Colony.[52] Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States and author of the Declaration of Independence, wrote: "Bacon, Locke and Newton. I consider them as the three greatest men that have ever lived, without any exception, and as having laid the foundation of those superstructures which have been raised in the Physical and Moral sciences".[53] Historian and biographer William Hepworth Dixon considered that Bacon's name could be included in the list of Founders of the United States of America.[54]
It is also believed by the Rosicrucian organization AMORC, that Bacon would have influenced a settlement of mystics in North America, stating that his work "The New Atlantis" inspired a colony of Rosicrucians led by Johannes Kelpius, to journey across the Atlantic Ocean in a chartered vessel called Sarah Mariah, and move on to Pennsylvania in late XVII Century. According to their claims, these rosicrucian communities "made valuable contributions to the newly emerging American culture in the fields of printing, philosophy, the sciences and arts".[55]

end quote from "Francis Bacon" from Wikipedia

This above quote demonstrates how not only was Francis Bacon "The father of the Scientific Method" but also how in some ways his ideas that he wrote about were pivotal to the Creation of the United States of America. His ideas inspired thousands and then millions around the world to create a society where "Freedom of Religion", "The industrial Revolution", "The abolition of Slavery", the "Abolition of Debtor's prisons",  and "The separation of Church and State"  and much more became possible in actuality for those of us who live in the U.S. A. ever since.

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