A Biographical History of Philosophy Author:George Henry Lewes Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: FIRST EPOCH. FOUNDATION OF THE INDUCTIVE METHOD. § I. The Life Of Bacon. Francis Bacon was born on the 22d January, 1561. Mr. Basil Montagu, the laborio... more »us and affectionate (we had almost said idolatrous) biographer of Bacon, wishes us to believe that the family was ancient and illustrious; and favors us with rhetorical flourishes about Bacon retiring to the " halls of his ancestors." This is somewhat different from the story of Bacon's grandfather having kept the sheep of the Abbot of Bury. But although we can claim for Bacon no illustrious ancestry, we must not forget his excellent parentage. His father, Sir Nicholas, was generally considered as ranking next to the great Burleigh as a statesman. His mother, Anne, daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, " was distinguished both as a linguist and as a theologian. She corresponded in Greek with Bishop Jewel, and translated his Apologia from the Latin so correctly, that neither he nor Bishop Parker could suggest a single alteration."f His health was very delicate, which made him sedentary and reflective. Of his youth we know little, but that little displaysthe reflective tendency of his mind. At the age of twelve he discussed the point as to how a juggler could tell the card of which a man thought: he at first ascribed it to a confederacy between the juggler and the servants, till he at last discovered the law of the mind on which the trick depends. We hear also of his leaving his playfellows to examine the cause of an echo which he had observed in a vault. At thirteen he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he soon felt a profound contempt for the course of study pursued there, and an inveterate scorn for Aristotle and his followers. It is said that he there planned his Novum Organum; but this is highly improbable....« less