FRANCIS BACON - THE
THINKER Other than students of English literature, very few people would have heard of Francis Bacon. Here was a
great intellectual, a scientist, statesman and above all a thinker. True every human being is endowed with the capacity to think and human beings do think about things. But you can't call every one a thinker. Thinkers try to find answers to the great questions of life, society, knowledge and the problems that confront mankind, particularly of their times and generally of all times. Bacon belonged to 16th century England, nay Europe, and he was a man of renaissance.Francis Bacon was the first man to declare that sense organs are the sources of knowledge. Thomas Hobbes's 'Leviathan' got burnt by backward
thinking elements for this very reason. Bacon wrote very short, but extremely thought provoking
essays on multivarious topics covering personal, social and philosophical questions.He
says that man fears death as children fear darkness. He further gives an account of how different great personalities faced death. He was the first man to deal with the question of individual friendship. There can not be a complete career diplomat without studying Bacon, particulary his 'Of Simulation and Dissimulation'. He says that adversity brings out the best in man. Of course he was not a stoic. The point was that a man's real metal can be tested only when he is in crisis. A flower gives fragrance only when it is squeezed. Likewise, man's best comes out when he is in a crisis, in other words, when he is in an adverse situation. Francis Bacon has written on revenge, on religion and even on married and unmarried life. He says that 'wife and children are hostages to fortune'. That is, man can not pursue great ideals if he has to feed a family. Do not blame Bacon for not thinking of woman. Man's thinking has its limits. Today, even a child knows some ideas on the questions of women's liberation. That was not the case in 16th century, even in the most revolutionary thinker of those days. Would you like to know what William Blake, a great English Poet, told about Bacon's essays? William Blake said that Bacon's essays were 'advice from Satan's kingdom'. Hegel found out that 'evil' is the motive force of history. Blake was probably not very happy with the boldness in Bacon's thinking. Bacon dared to think beyond the confines of the then society. Can we call it 'out of box' thinking, according to the parlance of modern day management? Today's 'evil' becomes tomorrow's virtue. And today's virtue becomes tomorrow's evil. You have to understand Hegel's statement about
evil as the motive force of history in this light. Remember, Francis Bacon was a contemporary of the great Shakespeare. It was the greatness of the times that served as the backdrop for the emergence of such great men. Now we see charlatans, pot-boilers and downright scoundrels masquerading themselves as intellectuals, thinkers and even conscience keepers of the society. They are no better than the street curs barking at each other for bones and fawning upon any passerby who throws some crumbs. SATHYA
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