Backus, Isaac, A.M., a distinguished Baptist minister, was born at Norwich, Conn., Jan. 9, 1724. In 1748 he was ordained pastor of a Congregational church in Titicut, Middleborough, Mass. In 1749 a number of the members of Mr. Backus' s church alter- ed their sentiments with regard to baptism, and he at length united with them in opinion. He was immersed in 1751. For some years he held to open communion, but afterward abandoned it. A Baptist church was
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duly constituted in 1756, and he was installed its pas- tor. He faithfully discharged his pastoral duties for more than half a century. To his labors during this long period the Baptists of America owe much of their success. He was a voluminous writer, and published, among other works, a History of the Bajitists (3 vols.), and also an Abridgment of the same (1 vol.). A list of his writings may be seen in Sprague, Annals, vi, 56. See also Hovey, Life and Times of Backus (Bost. 1858, 12mo) ; Christian Review, xiv, 197.
Bacon, Francis, Viscount St. Albans and Baron Verulam, one of the most celebrated philosophers of modern times, was born in London, Jan. 22, 1560. His father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, was keeper of the seal under Elizabeth, and a distinguished lawyer and states- man; his mother was a learned and pious woman, who had translated several ascetic works from Italian, and had taken part in the theological controversies of her time. Early in life he gave signs of extra- ordinary talent, and Queen Elizabeth used to call him playfully her young lord keeper. In his twelfth year he is said to have speculated on the laws of imag- ination, and in the next year he was matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained for three years and a half. After the termination of his studies in 1577, his father sent him to France, under the care of Sir Amyas Paulet, English ambassador at the French court. There he came in contact with a number of distinguished men, and laid out a plan for a reconstruction of the philosophical sciences. The death of his father recalled him to England in 1580, and, failing to get an office for which he applied, he devoted himself to the study of law. In 1582 he was called to the bar, in 1586 he was made a bencher, and in 1580, at the age of 28, counsel extraordinary to the queen. Still he could not rise under Elizabeth, who rejected his claims for preferment on the ground that he was " not very deep." As some compensation for his disappointment, Count Essex made him a present of Twickenham Court, worth about £1800, and so beau- tiful that Bacon called it the Garden of Paradise. Ba- con, some years later, was charged with rewarding this disinterested kindness with ingratitude on the trial of Essex ; but probably unjustly (see the Penny Cyclopae- dia, s. v.). In 1595 he was returned to Parliament as member for Middlesex, and greatly distinguished himself for parliamentary eloquence. After the ac- cession to the throne of James I, he rapidly rose in dignities and influence. In 1C03 he received the hon- or of knighthood, in 1604 he was appointed king's counsel, in 1607 solicitor general, in 1613 attorney gen- eral, in 1617 keeper of the great seal. In January of 1618 he was appointed lord high chancellor, and in the same year raised to the peerage as Baron of Ve- rulam. Three years later the title of Viscount of St. Albans was conferred on him. From the same year, 1621, dates his fall. A committee of the House of Commons reported two cases of corruption against him, and before the close of the proceedings similar cases to the number of 24 were presented. When his case was referred to the House of Peers he abandoned all defence, confessed his guilt, and was sentenced, on May 3d, to a fine of £40,000, and to imprisonment in the Tower during the king's pleasure. The sen- tence proved to be little more than a form. He was released from imprisonment after two days, and the fine was subsequently remitted, but he never recov- ered bis standing. Only once he was afterward sum- moned to attend Parliament, and the remainder of his life was spent in humble circumstances and among the few friends whom adversity left him. He died at Highgate, April 9, 1626.
Bacon was tho author of a philosophical system which is called after him the Baconian philosophy, and which has had a marked influence on the subsequent development of philosophy and of literature in gen- eral. "The sciences," he savs, "have hitherto been QQ
in a most sad condition. Philosophy, wasted in emp- ty and fruitless logomachies, has failed during so many centuries to bring out a single work or experiment of actual benefit to human life. Logic hitherto has served more to the establishment of error than to the investigation of truth. Whence all this ? Why this penury of science ? Simply because they have broken away from their root in nature and experience. The blame of this is chargeable to many sources : fir6t, the old and rooted prejudice that the human mind loses somewhat of its dignity when it busies itself much and continuously with experiments and material things ; next, superstition and a blind religious zeal, which has been the most irreconcilable opposer to nat- ural philosophy; again, the exclusive attention paid to morals and politics by the Piomans, and since the Christian era to theology by every acute mind ; still farther, the great authority which certain philosophers have exercised, and the great reverence given to an- tiquity ; and, in fine, a want of courage, and a despair of overcoming the many and great difficulties which lie in the -way of the investigation of nature. All these causes have contributed to keep down the sciences. Hence they must now be renewed, and re- generated; and reformed in their most fundamental principles ; there must now be found a new basis of knowledge and new principles of science. Thus rad- ical reformation of the sciences depends upon two con- ditions— objectively, upon the referring of science to experience and the philosophy of nature ; and sub- jectively, upon tho purifying of the sense and the in- tellect from all abstract theories and traditional preju- dices, Both conditions furnish the correct method of natural science, which is nothing other than the meth- od of induction. Upon a true induction depends all the soundness of the sciences." In these propositions the Baconian philosophy is contained. The historical significance of its founder is, therefore, in general this : that he directed the attention and reflection of his con- temporaries again upon the given actuality, upon na- ture; that he affirmed the necessity of experience, which had been formerly only a matter of accident, and made it as in and for itself an object of thought. His merit consists in having brought up the principle of scientific empiricism, and only in this (Schwegler, History of Philosophy, transl. by Seelye, p. 166). The principles of his method are to be found in many writ- ers before him, even in Aristotle ; but it was Bacon's glory that he so set forth those principles as to bring mankind to act upon them. His plagiarisms, espe- cially from his great namesake, Itoger Bacon, are un- questionable (see De Maistre, Soirees de St.Petersbourg ; Methodist Quarterly, Jan. and April, 1858 ; and Bacon, Roger).