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ABSTRACT
Francis Bacon’s works are pervaded by the firm belief that he was living in a new epoch. He thought of this epoch as based on knowledge and mechanical arts, which would permit dominion over nature. This dominion arises from mankind’s taking concrete action to improve the living conditions of humanity. Defining the nature of this action leads to individuate a plural historical subjectivity in Bacon’s thought. The different kinds of agency, and different kinds of technologies, define peoples in ethnological and spatial terms. Imperiality, that is human dominion over nature, implies the necessity of improving the conditions of the whole mankind, in a manner that opens the way of thinking in which ‘backward’ peoples are subject to this action of improvement. Colonialism is strictly related to imperiality. The idea of colonialism, in the New World in particular, rests on the assumption that human race can improve its living conditions, exercising power over nature. Therefore, imperiality and colonialism are not simply a tool of a British dominion, but elements of the new epoch that Bacon is theorising. In this sense, imperiality and colonialism are part of the philosophical structure of Bacon’s modernity.
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Notes
1 Howard B. White, Peace Among the Willows: The Political Philosophy of Francis Bacon (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1968), 88–92; Charles Whitney, Francis Bacon and Modernity (New Haven – London: Yale University Press 1986), 167–9, 197–8; Julian Martin, Francis Bacon, the State and the Reform of Natural Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 132–6.
2 Sarah Irving, ‘“In A Pure Soil”: Colonial Anxieties in the Work of Francis Bacon’, History of European Ideas 32 (2006). She expands her argument in Natural Science and the Origins of the British Empire (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2008).
3 Richard Serjeantson, ‘Francis Bacon, Colonisation, and the limit of Atlanticism’ (University of California, Berkeley, 16 March 2014, cited with the permission of the author) http://rems.berkeley.edu/files/2012/03/Richard-Serjeantson-Bacon-and-the-Limits-of-Atlanticism.pdf
4 ‘Sunt certe prorsus noua; etiam toto genera sed descripta ex veteri admodum exemplari, Mundo scilicet ipso, & Natura Rerum & Mentis. Ipse certe (vt ingenue fatear) soleo aestimare hoc Opus magis pro partu Temporis, quam Ingenij’. Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, ed. Graham Rees with María Wakely, Oxford Francis Bacon IX (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004), (6) 7. I will give the Latin text of most relevant quotations. The number in parenthesis corresponds to Latin text. From now on I will abbreviate Oxford Francis Bacon with OFB followed by the volume number.
5 The problem of the novelty of Bacon’s idea of knowledge opens a terminological question. Bacon uses the terms ‘knowledge’, ‘science’, ‘learning’ to describe the intellectual operation that he is promoting. For the sake of simplicity, and largely following Bacon, I will use these terms interchangeably, even if the term ‘science’ may be misleading if anachronistically associated with contemporary use of the word. The space of this essay is obviously too narrow to deal with the question whether Bacon’s science actually is modern science, so I will use the words ‘science’, ‘knowledge’, ‘learning’ as synonyms.
6 Francis Bacon, Advancement of Learning, OFB IV, 32.
7 ‘Opere naturam vincere’, Bacon, Novum Organum, (58) 59.
8 Ibid., (14) 15.
9 See Antonio Pérez Ramos, Francis Bacon’s Idea of Science and the Maker’s Knowledge Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 141–5.
10 Ibid., also, Robert Miner stresses the importance of ‘making’ in Bacon’s thought in order to overcome the fragility of human mind. Robert Miner, Truth in the making (New York: Routledge, 2004), 40.
11 Francis Bacon, ‘Parasceue ad historiam naturalem’, OFB XI, (462) 463.
12 ‘Scientiae eius siue Doctrinae, in cuius possessione humanum genus hactenus versatur, Summam, siue Descriptionem Vniuersalem’, Bacon, ‘Novum Organum’, (26) 27.
13 ‘Tres enim tantum Doctrinarum reuolutiones periodi recte numerari possunt; Vna, apud Grecos; Altera, apud Romanos; Vltima, apud nos, Occidentales scilicet Europae nationes’ Bacon, Novum Organum, (122–4) 123–5.
14 Bacon, Advancement of Learning, 60.
15 ‘Rursus (si placet) reputet quispiam, quantum intersit inter hominum vitam in excultissima quapiam Europae Prouincia, & in Regione aliqui Nouae Indiae maxime fera & barbara […] Atque hoc, non Solum, non Coelum, non Corpora, sed Artes praestant’. Bacon, ‘Novum Organum’, (194) 195.
16 Serjeantson, ‘Francis Bacon, Colonisation, and the limit of Atlanticism’, 2–5.
17 Videntur nobis homines, nec opes, nec vires suas bene nosse; verum de illis, maiora quam par est, de his, minora credere’. Bacon, Novum Organum, (10) 11.
18 Quod si quis humani generis ipsius potentiam & imperium in rerum Vniuersitatem instaurare & amplificare conetur; ea proculdubio Ambitio (si modo ita vocanda sit) reliquis & sanior, est & augustior. Horninis autem imperium in Res, in solis Artibus & Scientijs ponitur. Naturae enim non imperatur, nisi parendo Ibid., (194) 195.
19 Francis Bacon, Of the interpretation of Nature. Proem, in Works of Francis Bacon vol. X ed. James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis and Douglas Denon Heath (London: Longman, 1857–1874), 84–5. From now, I will abbreviate Spedding edition of Bacon’s work with Work followed by the volume number.
20 Francis Bacon, The New Atlantis and the Great Instauration, ed. J. Weinberger (Wheeling: Crofts Classics, 1989). Bacon offer his ideas about the organisation of knowledge also in the second book of the Advancement of Learning. Bacon, Advancement of Learning, 55–62.
21 Irving, Natural Science, 22.
22 As Irving notes, Earth itself is conceptualized as an empire. Irving, Natural Science , xii.
23 Bacon, ‘Advancement of Learning’, 50.
24 On Bacon’s morality see Ian Box ‘Bacon’s Moral Philosophy’, in The Cambridge Companion to Bacon, ed. Markku Peltonen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 271.
25 ‘Finis itidem Ethicas affectus ita componere, ut rationi militent, non autem eam invadant’. Francis Bacon, The Augmentis Scientiarum, Work I, 671, translation, Works IV, 456.
26 ‘Quin & turpe hominibus foret, si globi materialis tractus, Terrarum videlicet, Marium, Astrorum, nostris temporibus immensum aperti illustrati sint; globi autem Intellectualis fines, inter veterum inuenta angustias cohibeantur’. Bacon, ‘Novum Organum’, (132) 133 (emphasis added).
27 Francis Bacon, An Advertisement Touching a Holy Warre, OFB.
28 Ibid., 187.
29 Ibid., 190.
30 Ibid., 195.
31 Francis Bacon, Translation of the ‘De Sapientia Veterum’, Works VI, 761.
32 Bacon, An advertisement Touching a Holy Warre, 185.
33 About the meaning of the word Instauration see Charles Whitney, ‘Francis Bacon’s Instauratio: Dominion of and over Humanity’, Journal of the History of Ideas 50, no 1 (1989): 371–2.
34 The main writings of De Las Casas are in Bartolomé de las Casas, A selection of his writings, ed. George Sanderlin (New York: Knopf, 1971). For an account on De Las Casas life and works, in the context of the conquest of America see Lawrence A. Clayton, Bartolomé de las Casas and the Conquest of the Americas (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011).
35 Francis Bacon, ‘The Masculine Birth of Time’, in The Philosophy of Francis Bacon: An Essay on Its Development from 1603 to 1609, ed. Benjamin Farrington (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1964), 69. The Latin text is somehow more elegant: ‘Errori varietas, veritati unitas competit’. Francis Bacon Temporis Partus Masculus. Works VI, 535.
36 Andrew Fitzmaurice, Humanism and America. An Intellectual History of English Colonisation 1500–1625 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 55. See also Anthony Pagden, Lords of all the Worlds. Ideologies of Empire in Spain Britain and France c. 1500 – c. 1800 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 64–8.
37 Luis Roper, English Empire 1602–1658: beyond Jamestown (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2009), 13.
38 Ibid., 47.
39 Pagden, Lords of all the Worlds, 65–6. On the intellectual need to differentiate with Spanish colonialism see also Fitzmaurice, Humanism and America, 27, 145–6.
40 Fitzmaurice, Humanism and America, 61.
41 Ibid., 134 and 199 above all 3–4.
42 Ibid., 67. For the specific theme in Jacobean epoch, see also Markku Peltonen, Classical Humanism and Republicanism in English Political thought 1570–1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 199.
43 David Armitage, The Ideological Origins of British Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 51–2.
44 See Fitzmaurice, Humanism and America, 120–1.
45 Roper, English Empire, 37–8.
46 Fitzmaurice, ‘Humanism and America’, 82.
47 Ibid., 71.
48 Bacon, ‘Novum Organum’, (194) 195.
49 Ibid., (132) 133.
50 The Second Charter is reprinted in ‘Statutes at Large, Being a Collection of all the Laws of Virginia, from the First Session of the Legislature in the Year 1619, 13 vols’ ed. William Hening (Charlottesville, University Press of Virginia, 1969), vol. 1, 80–98. The document is accessible online thanks to the Avalon Project of Lillian Goldmann Law Library, Yale Law School. Url: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/va02.asp.
51 The most important writings on Ireland are Certain Considerations touching the Queen’s service in Ireland written in 1601, and Certain Considerations touching the Plantation in Ireland presented to James I in 1609. These writings, and the whole of Bacon’s writings about Ireland are available on line thanks to The Free Digital Humanities Resource for Irish history, literature and politics. Bacon’s corpus of Irish writings is available at http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/E600001-015/.
52 Francis Bacon, Certain considerations touching the Plantation in Sir Francis Bacon’s MSS relating to Ireland, 177, http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/E600001-015.html.
53 Many quotes form Acosta are in Francis Bacon, Historia Ventorum in Works II; and in Bacon, Novum Organum, (320) 321.
54 Irving maintains, on the contrary, that lust for knowledge is not related with colonialism while it is related with the idea of epistemic empire. See Irving, ‘Natural Science’, 38, 43.
55 Francis Bacon, Certain considerations, 181, http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/E600001-015.html.
56 Francis Bacon, Note on Bacon’s speech on Darcy’s case Works XIII, 109.
57 Bacon, ‘Novum Organum’, (140) 141.
58 The use of the image of Amadis de Gaul to convey the sense of wonder was common among the first Spanish reporters of discovery of America. See Wolfgang Haase and Meyer Reinhold, The Classical Tradition and America Volume I: European images of the Americas and the Classical Tradition Part 1 (Berlin: Walter e Gruyter, 1994), 297.
59 Michael Kiernan, ‘Commentary’ in Francis Bacon, The Essayes Or Counsels, Civill and Morall OFB XV, 239.
60 Francos Bacon, ‘Of Plantation’, in The Essayes, 106.
61 Francis Bacon, Certain considerations touching the Plantation, 170, http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/E600001-015.html. Serjeantson highlights that Ireland was the model for Bacon’s idea of a plantation ‘in a pure soil’, Serjeantson, ‘Francis Bacon, Colonisation, and the limits of Atlanticism’, 7.
62 In many place Bacon exposes his repulsion for Spain, for example: Francis Bacon ‘Of the interpretation of Nature. Proem’, Works X, 86. The manifesto of his repulsion is Francis Bacon, ‘Considerations Touching a War with Spain. To the Prince’, Works XIV, 469. Bacon consistently regard Spain as an enemy even after the peace with Spain that James signed in 1604.
63 Bacon, ‘Of Plantation’, 106.
64 It is important to note that Bacon’s earlier opinion was different. In Certain considerations he maintains that ‘discharge’ the overpopulation ‘out of England and Scotland may prevent many seeds of future perturbations’. Bacon is referring here to plantation in Ireland, showing that plantation in Virginia and Ireland was very different enterprise, the last one requiring the set of knowledge that Baconian method can bring. Francis Bacon, ‘Certain considerations’ in Sir Francis Bacon’s MSS relating to Ireland, 172–3, http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/E600001-015.html.
65 Bacon, ‘Of Plantation’, 106.
66 Ibid. 107.
67 Ibid., 106.
68 This is a recurring theme in Bacon’s thought: ‘For I do not chase likea child after golden apples,but stake everything on a victory for art in its race against nature’, Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, (176) 177.
69 A good introduction of the interpretative problems of New Atlantis is Browen Price ed., Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis. New Interdisciplinary Essays (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002). See also Jacqueline L. Cowan ‘Francis Bacon’s ‘New Atlantis’ and the alterity of the New World’, Literature and Theology 25, no. 4 (December 2011).
70 Bacon, New Atlantis, 59.
71 ‘praesenti Experimentorum fructu iuuet’ Bacon, ‘The Novum Organum’, (38) 39. ‘Immediate profit’ is the translation by Lisa Jardin and Michael Silverthorne see Francis Bacon, New Organon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). See also Bacon, ‘Advancement of Learning’, 32.
72 Bacon, ‘Of Plantations’ 106.
73 Ibid., 106.
74 Bacon, The Novum Organum, (194) 195.
75 ‘Inuentorum beneficia ad vniuersum genus humanum pertinere possunt’. Bacon ‘Novum Organum’, (192) 193.
76 ‘Rursus (si placet) reputet quispiam, quantum intersit inter hominum vitam in excultissima quapiam Europae Prouincia, & in Regione aliqui Nouae Indiae maxime fera & barbara: Ea[m] tantum differre existimabit, vt merito Hominen homini Deum esse’, Bacon, ‘Novum Organum’, (194) 195.
77 Ibid., (22) 23.
78 The importance of colonialism in Bacon’s thought has been questioned, from different points of view by Irving, Natural Science and ‘In a pure soil’, and by Markku Peltonen, Classical Humanism and Republicanism.
79 Bacon, ‘Of Plantation’, 108.
80 Ibid., 108.
81 Roper, English Empire, 16–17.
82 About the story of Pocahontas see Camilla Townsend, Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma (New York, Hill and Wang, 2004) and Helen C. Rountree, Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechancanough: Three Indian Lives Changed by Jamestown (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005).
83 Roper, ‘English Empire’, 73.
84 Bacon, ‘The Masculine Birth of Time’, 72.
85 Irving, Natural Science, 40.
86 Carl Schmitt describes this process very clearly. See Carl Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth (New York: Telos), 86–7.
87 Bacon, ‘Novum Organum’, (194) 195.
88 Neque igitur amplius intra Circulos paruos (veluti incantati) subsultabimus, sed Mundi Pomoeria circuitione xquabimus. Ibid., (462) 463.
89 For example, the position of Koyré is particularly harsh. According to him, Bacon has nothing to do with scientific revolution (and with modernity). Alexander Koyré, Etudés Galiléennes (Paris: Hermann, 1966), 12.
90 Paolo Rossi, Francesco Bacone dalla magia alla scienza (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1974), 15–16.
91 Thomas S. Kuhn, The Essential Tension. Selected Studies in Tradition and Change (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1977), 46.
92 One of the first to present this view was Benjamin Farrington, see Francis Bacon, Philosopher of Industrial Science (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1951).
93 Markku Peltonen elaborates this perspective in Markku Peltonen, ‘Politics and Science: Francis Bacon and the True Greatness of States’, Historical Journal 35 (1992); see also Peltonen, ‘Bacon’s Political Philosophy’ in The Cambridge Companion to Bacon, ed. Peltonen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 283–310.
94 See Julian Martin, Francis Bacon, the State and the Reform of Natural Philosophy, esp. 141–75; John E. Leary, Francis Bacon and the Politics of Science (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1994), esp. 257–8; Stephen Gaukroger, Francis Bacon and the Transformation of Early-Modern Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 6–10.
95 White, ‘Peace among the Willows’; Michelle Tolman Clarke, ‘Uprooting Nebuchadnezzar’s Tree: Francis Bacon’s Criticism of Machiavellian Imperialism’, Political Research Quarterly 61, no. 3 (Sep., 2008); Denise Albanese, ‘The New Atlantis and the Uses of Utopia’, ELH 57, no. 3 (Autumn, 1990).
96 Bacon, ‘New Atlantis’, 83.