Carl Menger, Francis Bacon (1875)

Carl Menger’s review of the substantially revised second edition of Kuno Fischer’s Francis Bacon und seine Nachfolger combines an appreciation of philosophical history with an account of Bacon’s scientific significance and political downfall. Its opening praises Fischer’s enlargement of the historical frame: Bacon now emerges from the intellectual traditions and political culture of England, while his philosophy is followed through Hobbes and Locke, Enlightenment materialism, Berkeley, Hume, and the Scottish school to Kant. The review then turns from Fischer’s achievement to Bacon himself, moving from methodological reform to a lengthy biography organized around the contrast between intellectual greatness and compromised public office.

For Menger, Bacon’s decisive achievement was to redirect natural inquiry from purposes to causes. Teleological explanation had projected intentional agency into nature, asking what phenomena were for instead of investigating the mechanical laws governing them. Bacon broke with this anthropomorphic approach:

Dieser haltlosen Richtung der Forschung hat nun Bacon ein Ende bereitet, indem er den Naturforschern als Aufgabe die Ergründung des ursächlichen Zusammenhanges der Naturerscheinungen anwies, zugleich aber die methodischen Grundsätze aussprach, welche noch heute bei der Erforschung der Naturerscheinungen maßgebend sind.

English translation: To this untenable direction of research Bacon now put an end, in that he assigned to natural scientists as their task the fathoming of the causal connection of natural phenomena, while at the same time enunciating the methodological principles which are authoritative to this day in the investigation of natural phenomena.

Menger presents this transformation as the foundation of modern scientific and technological progress. The practical consequences are intrinsic to Bacon’s philosophy: experience yields knowledge, knowledge enables invention, and invention extends human command over nature. Scientific worth therefore rests neither on the prestige of its objects nor on inherited hierarchies of learning:

Nicht die Art der Objecte adelt die Wissenschaft, sondern der Dienst, den sie der Menschheit leistet. Es giebt in der Wirklichkeit nichts, das der Erforschung unwerth oder für den Forscher verächtlich wäre.

English translation: It is not the kind of objects that ennobles science, but the service which it renders to mankind. There is nothing in reality that would be unworthy of investigation or contemptible for the investigator.

This expansive conception of inquiry supports Menger’s portrayal of Bacon as a thinker who could anticipate an industrial and scientific future from the modest achievements of his own age. The review’s relevance lies partly in this explicit conjunction of causal explanation, experiential knowledge, and public usefulness.

The biographical narrative complicates that celebration. Bacon’s dissatisfaction with scholastic teaching establishes his early commitment to intellectual renewal, but his father’s death and limited inheritance force him into law and the pursuit of remunerative office. Menger traces years of frustrated advancement under Elizabeth, followed by rapid promotion under James through attachment to Buckingham. The desired independence for scholarship becomes entangled with debt, patronage, ambition, and courtly display. Bacon’s ascent to the chancellorship and peerage thus prepares the reversal of 1621, when parliamentary opposition to royal policy, monopolies, and judicial abuses culminates in charges against him.

Menger recounts Bacon’s confession, conviction, punishment, and partial rehabilitation before reopening the question of culpability. His central distinction is between receiving gifts and selling judgments:

Daß Bacon in seinem richterlichen Amte Geschenke angenommen hat, steht fest; aber Geschenke sind noch nicht Bestechungen. Es besteht ein Unterschied zwischen „fees“ und „bribes“.

English translation: That Bacon accepted gifts in his judicial office is established; but gifts are not yet bribes. There is a difference between "fees" and "bribes."

The confession does not, in Menger’s reading, settle the matter: Bacon’s submission to the king’s wishes may explain his refusal to defend himself. Moreover, gifts had customarily formed part of officials’ income. Menger locates the prosecution at a moment when opposition to this established practice was gaining force. Historical explanation consequently qualifies the verdict without absolving Bacon’s character:

In Bacons Zeit machte sich zuerst eine starke Reaction gegen dieses Geschenkewesen geltend; Bacon selbst eiferte heftig dagegen, doch konnte der charakterschwache, verschwenderische, prachtliebende und prunksüchtige Staatsmann den Lockungen persönlich nicht widerstehen.

English translation: In Bacon's time a strong reaction against this system of gifts first made itself felt; Bacon himself inveighed vehemently against it, yet the statesman, weak of character, prodigal, fond of magnificence and given to ostentation, could not personally resist the temptations.

The closing account returns to scholarly labor. Political exclusion finally grants Bacon the leisure he had sought, though under humiliating conditions, and his last years produce a substantial portion of his enduring writings. His fatal illness after an experiment in preserving meat with snow brings the biography back to empirical inquiry. Throughout, Menger separates scientific achievement from personal virtue while interpreting both within their historical circumstances: the architect of humanity’s enlarged power over nature remains vulnerable to the dependencies and temptations of political power.