"Some kinds of baseness
Are nobly undergone; and most poor matters
Point to rich ends." (Tempest, iii. 1.)
"Bacon's leading thought was the good of humanity. He held that study, instead of employing itself in wearisome and sterile speculations, should be engaged in mastering the secrets of nature and life, and in applying them to human use. His method, in the attainment of this end, was rigid and pure observation, aided by experiment and fructified by induction.... He clearly invented a thermometer; he instituted ingenious experiments on the compressibility of bodies, and on the density and weight of air; he suggested chemical processes; he suggested the law of universal gravitation, afterward demonstrated by Newton; he foresaw the true explication of the tides, and the cause of colors." ["American Cyclopedia." Vol. II., p. 204.]
This great work, the "Novum Organum," as often happens, was received by the majority of readers of his time with laughter and ridicule. Coke wrote on the title-page of a presentation copy:
"It deserveth not to be read in schools,
But to be freighted in the ship of fools."
The ill-fortune which had so shrouded Bacon's struggling youth, and which had given way to such a magnificent sun-burst of splendid prosperity, was again massing its clouds and determined to cover his old age with shame, gloom and sorrow. He had been Lord Chancellor but three years, when, on March 15, 1621, a committee of the House of Commons reported two cases of bribery or corruption against him. Twenty-two other cases were also soon after presented. The House of Lords proceeded to investigate these charges, and Bacon defended himself. It was shown that fourteen of the twenty-four cases were presents given long after the suits were terminated; three more were sums of money loaned in the ordinary course of business; another case was an arbitration where compensation was due him; in another case the gift was sent back; another present, a piece of furniture, had never been accepted; another case was a New Year's gift, and in other cases the money was openly paid to the officers of his court. "Thus," says Hepworth Dixon, "after the most rigid scrutiny into his official acts, and into the official acts of his servants, not a single fee or remembrance, traced to the chancellor, can, by any fair construction, be called a bribe. Not one appears to have been given on a promise; not one appears to have been given in secret; not one is alleged to have corrupted justice."
It must be remembered that the salaries of all the high officers of the government were at that time paid in gifts and fees. Thus the king gave the lord chancellor but £81 6s. 8d. a year, while the place was worth £10,000 to £15,000; worth in our money to-day $125,000. "The judges had enough to buy their gloves and robes, not more." The lord chancellor had to maintain a huge retinue: "his court, his household, and his followers, gentlemen of quality, sons of peers and prelates; magistrates, deputy lieutenants of counties, knights of the shire, have all to live on fees and presents." It is still true that in England the law will not help a barrister or a physician to recover a fee; their compensation is, in theory, at least, supposed to be a gratuity for those they serve.
But it may be urged that Bacon plead guilty to corruption and bribery. He did nothing of the kind. He acknowledged that he "partook of the abuses of the times," and that the existing customs should be reformed; but he solemnly declared to Buckingham, May 31, 1621: "I have been a trusty and honest and Christ-loving friend to your lordship and the justest chancellor that hath been in the five charges since my father's time." Again, he said: "I had no bribe or reward in my eye or thought when I pronounced any sentence or order.... I take myself to be as innocent as any babe born on St. Innocent's day in my heart." All attempts to subsequently reverse his decrees failed, although his enemies were in possession of power. But King James urged him to make no defence, "to trust his honor and his safety to the crown.... He pleads guilty to carelessness, not to crime." He desired to live to finish up his philosophical works. To resist the king's wishes was to leave himself at the mercy of his life-long enemy, Coke; he yielded. The king remitted his fine of £40,000 and released him from the Tower. Bacon goes back to his books and writes in cipher: "I was the justest judge that was in England these fifty years; but it was the justest censure that was in Parliament these two hundred years." He meant thereby, that while personally innocent of corruption, the sentence would end gift-giving to judges. His formal confession to Parliament is a justification of every act complained of, for he relieves it, while acknowledging it, of those details which imply bribery.
He devoted the last five years of his life to putting forth the greatest works ever published by man; including the first complete edition of the so-called Shakespeare plays. Fortunate is it for the world that he was driven from the task of settling petty squabbles about the trash of the time, listening to "weary lawyers with endless tongues;" adjudicating questions of pounds, shillings, and pence between litigants whose very names have disappeared; and was shipwrecked by the stress of the great storm that struck him, like Prospero, on an island of solicitude, with books that "he prized above his dukedom," to perform labors in which all mankind will be interested even to the consummation of civilization on earth.
His patience, his gentleness, his forbearance were saint-like; still in his right hand he carried "gentle peace to silence envious tongues." His appearance, we are told, struck all men who beheld him with a great sense of awe. Those who were most closely associated with him loved him most dearly. His purposes were Godlike. They were "the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate." Macaulay says of Bacon's experimental philosophy:
"It has lengthened life; it has mitigated pain; it has extinguished diseases; it has increased the fertility of the soil; it has given new securities to the mariner; it has furnished new arms to the warrior; it has spanned great rivers and estuaries with bridges of form unknown to our fathers; it has guided the thunderbolt innocuously from heaven to earth; it has lighted up the night with the splendor of the day; it has extended the range of the human vision; it has multiplied the power of human muscle; it has accelerated motion; it has annihilated distance; it has facilitated intercourse, correspondence, all friendly offices, all despatch of business; it has enabled men to descend to the depths of the sea; to soar into the air; to penetrate securely into the noxious recesses of the earth; to traverse the land with cars which whirl along without horses; and the ocean with ships which sail against the wind."