Book Description

Excerpt from The Physical and Metaphysical Works of Lord Bacon: Including the Advancement of Learning and Novum Organum But it was Bacon who saw most clearly, and set forth most eloquently, the glories of the promised land into which men were called upon to enter. He felt that under the false leadership of Aristotle and his mediaeval disciples humanity had wandered long centuries in the wilderness of empty words and vain imaginings. Throughout the course of his busy and often troubled public life Bacon never ceased to believe that his true mission was to recall men from the study of words to that of things, to point out to them the power and advantage to be gained from a true knowledge of nature, as well as to set forth the method by means of which he believed such knowledge could be gained. Francis Bacon was born in London on January 22, 1561, according to our present method of reckoning time. He was the youngest son by a second marriage of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord-keeper of the Great Seal under Elizabeth, and Anne Cooke (daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke), whose sister, Mildred, was the wife of Lord Burleigh, perhaps the most prominent statesman of the time. In his twelfth year (1573) Bacon was sent with his brother, Anthony, to Trinity College, Cambridge, where his tutor was Whitgift, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. He left the University at the end of 1575, going abroad the following year with Sir Amyas Paulet, the English ambassador in Paris. As an attache of the embassy, he spent about three years in France, living at Paris, Blois, Poictiers, and Tours, and gaining much useful experience. The sudden death of his father, however, caused him to return to England; and, as his fortune was but small, he devoted himself to the study of law, and was admitted as a barrister in 1582. In 1584, he was elected to Parliament, and soon began to attract attention by his ability and power in debate. The political preferment which he sought was, however, long delayed, and he suffered the disappointment of seeing various offices for which he was a candidate given to his rivals, though he had the personal friendship and powerful support of the brilliant Essex, at that Time the greatest favorite of Elizabeth. In the mean time, he was constantly harassed by financial embarrassments, until he was at length relieved by the generosity of Essex. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."