THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, APRIL 10, 1926. FRANCIS BACON.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19760, 10 April 1926, Page 10

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, APRIL 10, 1926. FRANCIS BACON.

Yesterday was the tercentenary' of the death of Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, who is often incorrectly styled “Lord Bacon.” Tennyson allots a special niche among the statuesque adornments of his Palace of Art to “large-browed Verulam, the first of those who know.” To the general reader, distinct from the searching student, the career and work of Bacon in politics and philosophy are best known through the medium of Macaulay’s brilliant but in some respects misleading essay. Spedding’s elaborate biography, largely of the nature of an apologia, could never bo popular, though it is a striking monument of laborious research and judicious acumen. On Bacon’s reports there rests, and probably always will rest, the blended honour and shame of Pope’s epigram—“the wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind.” Bacon will never be cited as an examplar of political integrity and generosity. Lord Birkenhead, in a recent essay, dealt gently with the great man’s failings, but he could not pronounce judgment of acquittal. The best that can be said is that Bacon’s historical position as statesman and judge is on the borderline between virtue and vice. It is always a relief to turn from the sordid and dubious elements in his personal story and contemplate his disinterested and invaluable achievements in the field of philosophy and science. “The first of those who know” is not an extravagant term to apply to the author of the “Novum Organum” and the “Advancement of Learning.” It is impossible to estimate the debt, direct and indirect, which human progress owes to the former production. The contributions of Newton and Darwin in different ways, perhaps with those of Burke on the political side, are alone comparaable as regards lasting influences with Bacon’s work as an intellectual guide. Outside England, no doubt, in his own and kindred lives, Bacon has had rivals —or, we should say rather, equals, for there is no rivalry in the dispassionate arena of thoughtful investigation. Plato and Aristotle maintain their proud renown, and the course of the centuries does not dim the lustre of the fame of Descartes and Copernicus. It has been said that Bacon and Descartes share the honour of inaugurating modern philosophy. “What,” asks a perspicacious commentator, “is the real ground of Bacon’s distinction in the realm of thought? . . . The true answer seems to be that he owes his position not only to the general spirit of his philosophy, but to the manner in which he worked into a connected system the new mode of thinking and to the incomparable power and eloquence with which he enforced it. Like all epoch-making works the ‘Novum Organum’ gave expression to ideas which were always in the air. The time was ripe for a great change. . . . In the domain of the moral and metaphysical sciences his influence has been perhaps more powerful than in that of the physical.” Certain it is that a long line of thinkers has drawn inspiration from him; and now that he has been in nis grave for three hundred years his personal errors will not be permitted to cloud the brightness of his intellectual distinction or to weaken his claim to an abiding place on the roll of famous benefactors of humanity.