Harvey's last years
Harvey was still vigorous at seventy-three when he published a treatise on embryology (1651). He rejected the belief of his time that small creatures arise spontaneously from rotting flesh, and wrote that all animals, even those that bear live young like women, come from an egg, coining the phrase that every animal comes from an egg. Six years later he died of a stroke. He left most of his fortune, 20,000 pounds according to the book, to the Royal College of Physicians, and ten pounds to Thomas Hobbes as a token of his affection.
Francis Bacon: the rise
We now come to the greatest and proudest thinker of the age, Francis Bacon (1561 to 1621). His birth, his education in literature, politics and law, his sudden poverty, his fruitless appeals for office, and his warning to a guilty, wealthy friend were told in earlier volumes. Learning and ambition so absorbed him that he paid little attention to women, though he liked young men. At last, at forty-five (1606), he married Alice Barnham, who had an income of 220 pounds a year, but they had no children.
After James took the throne, Bacon wrote the customary flattering letter, presenting himself as a capable man fit for office, a child of a royal keeper of the seal and a relative of the Cecils, and suggesting that ministers' hostility might explain why he had been left out. Perhaps his opportunism also explains his late arrival. Bacon sat in Parliament for nineteen years, usually supported the government, and won fame for his wide knowledge, useful ideas and clear, forceful speeches. From time to time he sent the king memoranda that advised him eloquently and cautiously. They urged James to promote harmony between Commons and Lords, to merge the parliaments of England and Scotland, to end religious persecution, to pacify Ireland by winning its Catholics, to grant English Catholics more freedom without regard to papal claims, and to find a way of reconciling Anglicans and Puritans. One historian who has studied the politics of the period holds that carrying out this program would have prevented the troubles of the next fifty years. James thought the proposals impractical for the temper of the people, and was content to count Bacon among the three hundred who received a title. Sir Francis went on waiting.
Yet his skill at the bar gradually brought wealth. By 1607 his fortune stood at 24,155 pounds, by the book's figure. At his splendid estate at Gorhambury, with select and costly servants and nimble secretaries such as Thomas Hobbes, he could enjoy the beauty and comfort that he loved, wisely but to excess. To preserve his health he gardened, and he arranged a quiet retreat among his gardens for study. Bacon wrote like a philosopher and lived like a king. In his view there was no reason for a scholar to be poor, or for Solomon not to rule.
He was not far from the throne. In 1607 James at last recognized his worth and made him solicitor general. In 1613 he became attorney general, in 1616 a privy councillor, in 1617 lord keeper of the great seal, and in 1618 lord chancellor. He was also raised in rank: first Baron Verulam in 1618, and Viscount St. Albans in January 1621. When James went to Scotland, he let his chancellor run English affairs. Bacon received ambassadors with full ceremony, and at Gorhambury lived in such grandeur that the court seemed to be there rather than at Whitehall or St. James's.
The fall
Bacon won everything except honor. In pursuit of office he repeatedly trampled principle. As attorney general he used his influence to obtain judgments favoring the king. As keeper of the seal he defended the most oppressive monopolies, apparently to please Buckingham. As judge he accepted substantial gifts from litigants. All this followed the custom of the time: officials were underpaid and made up the shortfall with gifts for their help. James admitted that if he punished the bribe-takers, none of his subjects would be left. But he too took bribes.
The Parliament that met in January 1621 turned against the king in great anger. Members hated Bacon, who as the king's defender had upheld the monopolies. They could not yet remove the king, but they could bring his minister to trial. In February a committee was appointed to investigate the courts. In March it reported many irregularities, in particular the lord chancellor's conduct, and he was charged with taking bribes in twenty-three cases. Bacon appealed to the king and predicted that those who strike the chancellor today will soon strike the king. James advised him to admit the charges and leave a warning example to corrupt officials. On 22 April Bacon sent his confession to the House of Lords, admitting that like other judges he had received gifts from suitors, but adding that his decisions had not been swayed, and in some cases had even gone against the giver.
The Lords sentenced him to pay a fine of 40,000 pounds, to be imprisoned in the Tower during the king's pleasure, to be barred forever from office and from Parliament, and to keep away from the court. He was taken to the Tower on 31 May, but within four days the king ordered him released and spared him the ruinous fine. The fallen chancellor withdrew to Gorhambury and tried to live more simply. Rawley, his first biographer, found after his death a coded note, soon famous, in which Bacon wrote that he had been the justest judge in England in fifty years, but that Parliament had passed the justest sentence in two hundred. The effects of the charge were good. It checked bribery in office and set a precedent for ministers' responsibility to Parliament. It also drew Bacon away from politics, where his views were liberal but his actions reactionary, toward science and philosophy, where he could, as he put it, ring the bell that calls the wits together, and proclaim in splendid prose his revolt and his program of reason.
The Great Instauration
Even if philosophy was not Bacon's hidden love or his highest gift, it long served as a refuge from the troubles of public life. Between 1603 and 1605 he published a fine work, The Advancement of Learning, though he regarded it as a mere notice of intentions and not a basic work. In 1609 he wrote to the Bishop of Ely, hoping God would let him write a true and complete book of philosophy, and in 1610 to Casaubon that if he could put human life in order with true and real thought, his aim would be achieved. In his busy years in office, hurrying because he expected a long life, he had drawn up a masterly plan for renewing science and philosophy. Seven months before his fall he presented the plan to Europe in Latin, under the bold title Instauratio Magna, the Great Instauration.
Its title page was a kind of challenge: it showed a ship with full sails passing through the Pillars of Hercules into the Atlantic. Medieval tradition held that no one should go beyond the Pillars, but Bacon wrote on the page that many shall pass through and knowledge shall be increased. He then wrote with great pride that Francis, Baron of Verulam, reasoned thus and judged it to the interest of present and future generations to know his thoughts. He had seen that all that passes for science is a kind of treadmill and an endless confusion that ends where it began.