22 January: Boreham on Francis Bacon

A Philosophic Pantheon
We are all idolaters. It is in the blood. We may not now worship Thor and Woden, Freya and Tyr, at least under those names but we have our idols yet. In a passage that Macaulay regarded as among the greatest and most influential contributions ever made to literature, Francis Bacon whose birthday this is, charged us with worshipping four. And he named them. Beware, he said, of the Idols of the Tribe, beware of the Idols of the Cave, beware of the Idols of the Market Place, and beware of the Idols of the Theatre! Bacon was concerned with these doubtful divinities as the enemies of pure reason, the foes of accurate thought, the adversaries of scientific criticism, and the perverters of sound judgment, but we need be bound by no such narrow limits.

In warning his readers of the Idol of the Tribe, Bacon had in mind the contagion of the crowd, the tendency to cheer when the multitude cheers and to hoot when the multitude hoots. If, like Robinson Crusoe, a man was marooned on a desert island, his own judgment would be supreme. But as soon as Friday makes his appearance the absolute sovereignty of their own intellect becomes modified. Crusoe's view of every question is influenced by Friday's view. And, if the population of the island were increased from two to 200, the tendency would be for Crusoe's judgment to become submerged in the judgment of the multitude. The principle affects our lives at every turn. Why do we dress as we do—one way this season, another way next; one way in this country, another way in that? Who ordains the general outline and the particular style? We obey the Idol of the Tribe.

Designing The Upholstery Of The Mind
In turning his attention to the Idol of the Cave, Bacon was thinking of the home. There a man is monarch of all he surveys. An Englishman's home is his castle. In designing it, in constructing it, and in furnishing it he thinks of nothing but its comfort. He will make everything as congenial, as agreeable and as snug as he possibly can. Who can blame him? But our philosopher is afraid that he may carry his craze for comfort a little too far. For a man is more than a mere cave-dweller. He has a mind, a heart, a soul. He needs not only things, but thoughts. He is essentially an intellectual animal, a reasoning animal, an emotional animal. Whether he intends to do so or not, he will find himself providing himself with a small stock of convictions. He may do it deliberately and systematically, or he may do it casually and absent-mindedly but he will do it.

It is a race habit. And the danger is that, unless he is on his guard, he may select his convictions on the same principle on which he selects his furniture. He will gather together a few agreeable conclusions; he will provide himself with a comfortable creed; he will fit himself out with a neat little collection of congenial beliefs; and then he will rub his hands, lie back at his ease and congratulate himself on his shrewd discernment and excellent taste. Bacon does not mean that a conclusion, to be sound, must necessarily be forbidding. Only a stoic, an ascetic, a misanthrope would ask us to reject a proposition on the ground that it was so captivating. To adopt such a course would be, not to worship the Idol of the Cave but to prostrate ourselves before a still more hideous deity. Such repugnant idolatry Bacon would heartily abhor. Suspect your agreeable conclusions, he says. Do not reject them, but overhaul them. Analyse then, verify them, confirm them. He would have us think as we think and live as we live, not merely because it is pleasant so to do but because, having tested our thoughts, convictions and modes of life in the most exacting crucible, we have found that they ring true.

Debasement Of Money, Manners And People
The Market Place was a great place in Bacon's day. It was the place to which everything was brought and in which all buying and selling were done. Bacon recognises it as a good place and money as a good thing. If nobody desired wealth the resources of the country would never be exploited. Why should men trouble to clear the bush or sink mines or erect factories or cultivate farms? Apart from the love of money we should be a people of sluggish wit and savage habits. Money is good, just as the stone in the quarry is good. Set the stone on a pedestal and worship it, and you degrade your manhood in the process. Deify money and it debauches you. Hence Bacon's warning against the Idol of the Market Place.

And, by the Idol of the Theatre, he aimed his shafts against the high crime of pretending. He pleads for stark sincerity, crystalline simplicity, genuine reality. Beware, he implores the thinkers of his day, of simulating an acceptance of conclusions that are not honestly your own. Beware of affecting to reject conclusions that, in your secret soul, you acknowledge. Man is never so great as when he calls his intellect into independent action. It is at this point that he stands, among all creatures, peerless, unrivalled, supreme. But if, by duplicity or dissimulation, he vitiates that sublime prerogative, he ruins everything. He becomes a mere devotee of Bacon's last and basest idol.

F W Boreham

Image: Francis Bacon