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English · 1561-1626 · 20 quotes
English · 1561–1626
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Francis Bacon was the English philosopher, essayist, and statesman who, at the turn of the seventeenth century, argued that knowledge should be built from observation and experiment rather than inherited from ancient authorities — and in doing so helped invent the scientific method. Born in London in 1561, he rose to become Lord Chancellor under James I, was convicted of bribery, and spent the rest of his life writing. His Essays, published between 1597 and 1625, are among the first examples of the form in English: compact, practical, and alert to the gap between how people behave and how they say they behave. Knowledge is power; a wise man will make more opportunities than he finds; a man dies as often as he loses his friends — the aphorisms range from the epistemological to the personal with the same precision. He died in 1626, reportedly of a chill contracted while stuffing a chicken with snow to test refrigeration.
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