Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans (January 22, 1561 - April 9, 1626) was 
an English philosopher, statesman, and essayist. He was knighted in 1603, 
created Baron Verulam in 1618, and created Viscount St Albans in 1621; both 
peerage titles becoming extinct upon his death.

He began his professional life as a lawyer, but he has become best known as 
an philosophical advocate and defender of the scientific revolution. His 
works establish a methodology for scientific inquiry, often called the 
Baconian method.            
 
Early life

Francis Bacon was born at York House, Strand London.

He was the youngest of five sons of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the 
Great Seal under Elizabeth I. His mother, Ann Cooke Bacon was the second 
wife of Sir Nicholas and a member of the Reformed or Puritan Church.

Biographers believe that Bacon received an education at home in his early 
years, and that his health during that time, as later, was delicate. He 
entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1573 at the age of 13, living for 
three years there with his older brother Anthony Bacon.

At Cambridge, his studies of science brought him to the conclusion that 
the methods (and thus the results) were erroneous. His reverence for Aristotle 
conflicted with his dislike of Aristotelian philosophy, which seemed barren, 
disputatious, and wrong in its objectives.

On June 27, 1576, he and Anthony were entered de societate magistrorum at 
Gray's Inn, and a few months later they went abroad with Sir Amias Paulet, 
the English ambassador at Paris. The disturbed state of government and 
society in France under Henry III afforded him valuable political instruction.

The sudden death of his father in February 1579 necessitated Bacon's return 
to England, and seriously influenced his fortunes. Sir Nicholas had laid up 
a considerable sum of money to purchase an estate for his youngest son, but 
he died before doing so, and Francis was left with only a fifth of that 
money. Having started with insufficient means, he borrowed money and became 
habitually in debt. To support himself, he took up his residence in law at 
Gray's Inn in 1579.            

Career

In the fragment De Interpretatione Naturae Prooemium (written probably about 
1603) Bacon analyses his own mental character and establishes his goals, 
which were threefold: discovery of truth, service to his country, and 
service to the church. Knowing that a prestigious post would aid him toward 
these ends, in 1580 he applied, through his uncle, Lord Burghley, for some 
post at court. His application failed, and for the next two years he worked 
quietly at Gray's Inn until admitted as an outer barrister in 1582. In 1584 
he took his seat in parliament for Melcombe in Dorset. He wrote on the 
condition of parties in the church, and he set down his thoughts on 
philosophical reform in the lost tract, Temporis Partus Maximus, but he 
failed to obtain a position of the kind he thought necessary for success.

During this period Bacon became acquainted with Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl 
of Essex (1567-1601), Queen Elizabeth's favourite. By 1591 he was acting as 
the earl's confidential adviser. Bacon took his seat for Middlesex when in 
February 1593 Elizabeth called a Parliament to investigate a popish plot 
against her. His opposition to a bill that would levy triple subsidies in 
half the usual time (he objected to the time span) offended many people; 
he was accused of seeking popularity, and was for a time excluded from the 
court. When the attorney-generalship fell vacant in 1594 and Bacon became 
a candidate for the office, Lord Essex's influence could not secure him 
the position; in fashion, Bacon failed to become solicitor in 1595.

During the next few years, his financial situation remained bad. His friends 
could find no public office for him, a scheme for retrieving his position 
by a marriage with the wealthy widow Lady Elizabeth Hatton failed, and in 
1598 he was arrested for debt. His standing in the queen's eyes, however, 
was beginning to improve. She had begun to employ him in crown affairs a few 
years previously, and he gradually acquired the standing of one of the 
learned counsel, though he had no commission or warrant and received no 
salary. His relationship with the queen also improved when he severed ties 
with Essex, a fortunate move considering that the latter would be executed 
for treason in 1601.

The accession of James I brought Bacon into greater favour, and he was 
knighted in 1603. In the course of the uneventful first parliament session 
Bacon married Alice Barnham. Little or nothing is known of their married 
life: modern scholars speculate that he may have been a homosexual.

Bacon's services were rewarded in June 1607 with the office of Solicitor. 
In 1610 the famous fourth parliament of James met. Despite Bacon's advice 
to him, James and the Commons found themselves frequently at odds over 
royal prerogatives and the king's embarrassing extravagance, and the 
House was dissolved in February 1611. Through this Bacon managed in 
frequent debate to uphold the prerogative, while retaining the confidence 
of the Commons. In 1613, Bacon was finally able to become attorney-general, 
by dint of advising the king to shuffle judicial appointments. The parliament
of April 1614 objected to Bacon's presence in the seat for Cambridge -- 
he was allowed to stay, but a law was passed that forbade the attorney-general
to sit in parliament -- and to the various royal plans which Bacon had 
supported. His obvious influence over the king inspired resentment or 
apprehension in many of his peers.

Death

Francis Bacon's death had a considerable element of irony. He had been 
inspired by the possibility of using snow to preserve meat. Bacon purchased 
a chicken to investigate this possibility, but, during the endeavour of 
stuffing it with snow, contracted a fatal case of pneumonia. He died at 
Highgate.

Works and Philosophy

Bacon's works include his Essays, as well as the Colours of Good and Evil 
and the Meditationes Sacrae, all published in 1597; In felicem memoriam 
Elizabethae, a eulogy for the queen written in 1609; and various philosophical 
works which constitute the fragmentary and incomplete Instauratio magna, the 
most important part of which is the Novum organum (published 1620).

Bacon did not propose an actual philosophy, but rather a method of 
developing philosophy; he wrote that, while philosophy at the time used 
the deductive syllogism to interpret nature, the philosopher should instead 
proceed through inductive reasoning from fact to axiom to law. Before 
beginning this induction, the inquirer is to free his mind from certain 
false notions or tendencies which distort the truth. These are called 
"Idols" (idola), and are of four kinds: "Idols of the Tribe" (idola tribus), 
which are common to the race; "Idols of the Den" (idola specus), which are 
peculiar to the individual; "Idols of the Marketplace" (idola fori), coming 
from the misuse of language; and "Idols of the Theater" (idola theatri), 
which result from an abuse of authority. The end of induction is the 
discovery of forms, the ways in which natural phenomena occur, the causes 
from which they proceed.

Bacon's somewhat fragmentary ethical system, derived through use of his 
methods, is explicated in the seventh and eighth books of his De augmentis 
scientiarum (1623). He distinguishes between duty to the community, an 
ethical matter, and duty to God, a purely religious matter. Any moral 
action is the action of the human will, which is governed by reason and 
spurred on by the passions; habit is what aids men in directing their 
will toward the good. No universal rules can be made, as both situations 
and men's characters differ.

Bacon separates distinctly religion and philosophy, though the two can 
coexist. Where philosophy is based on reason, faith is based on revelation, 
and therefore irrational -- in De augmentis he writes that "[t]he more 
discordant, therefore, and incredible, the divine mystery is, the more 
honor is shown to God in believing it, and the nobler is the victory of 
faith."

Some have theorized that Bacon was the author of the plays usually 
attributed to William Shakespeare. See Shakespearean authorship.