Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/431

BACON. in accord with his life. But though religion can imagine the purposes of God, the business of the scientist is to understand the causal sequences of nature as controlled by the essences of phenomena. In ethics Bacon is to be regarded as the forerunner of the English Hedonistic School (see ), of which his disciple, Hobbes, is usually regarded as the founder. Bacon's own scientific work amounted to little. It is true that he propounded the theory that heat is a kind of motion, but this suggestion seems rather to have been a happy guess than a belief scientifically grounded. He was an opponent of the Copernican system of astronomy, which he regarded as a strange fancy; and he seems to have known nothing of the work of Kepler or of Harvey. His enthusiasm for science was not disinterested, but was due to a belief that 'knowledge is power'; that human conditions can best be improved by a more thorough acquaintance with the world in which human life must be lived.

Bacon's collected works were first published by Blackbourne, in 1730; another collection, with a life, by Mallet, in 1740; a handsome but ill-arranged edition is that of Montagu in 17 vols. (London, 1825-36); but the best, it is generally admitted, is that edited by Spedding, Ellis, and Heath, in 7 vols. (1857-59), with Life and Letters, 7 vols., ed. by Spedding (1861-74). A noted review of Bacon's character and works is to be found among Macaulay's Essays. For more temperate estimates consult: Fowler, Bacon: "English Philosophers Series" (London, 1881); Church, Life of Bacon: "Men of letters Series" (New York, 1884); Abbott, Francis Bacon: An Account of his Life and Works (London, 1885); and John Nichol, Francis Bacon: His Life and Philosophy (London, 1888-89).

BACON, See.

BACON, (1740-99). A British sculptor, born in London. In 1769 he received the first prize from the Royal Academy, of which he was soon after made a member. Among his principal works are: two busts of George III., one in Christ Church College at Oxford, the other in the University Library at Göttingen; and monuments of Lord Chatham in Westminster Abbey and in Guildhall, and of Blackstone at Oxford.

BACON, (1832-97). An American lawyer, born at Edgefield, S. C. He graduated at South Carolina College, in 1851, and soon afterwards was admitted to the bar. In 1858 he was appointed secretary to the United States Legation at Saint Petersburg, but resigned to enter the Confederate Army, in which he rose to the rank of major. He was sent with Gov. James L. Orr to Washington, in 1866 to bring about the restoration of South Carolina to the Union. In 1867 he was elected district judge, but was presently deposed by the Federal departmental commander. He was, in 1886, appointed United States chargé-d'affaires in Uruguay and Paraguay.

BACON, (1846-1904). An English clergyman, scientist, and aeronaut. He studied at Trinity College. Cambridge; was ordained priest of the English Church in 1870, and was curate of Houston. Cambridge, in 1870-77. Two eclipse expeditions of the British Astronomical Association — that to Buxar, India, in 1898, and that to Wadesboro, N. C, in 1900 — were made under his direction. In 1899 he accomplished the record voyage in English ballooning — ten hours from start to finish. He has published By Land and Sky (1901), which contains narratives of his ballooning exploits and the results of many of his investigations in meteorology, acoustics, and other subjects.

BACON, (1802-81). An American clergyman and writer. He was born at Detroit, Mich.; graduated at Yale in 1820 and at Andover in 1824. From 1825 till his death, he was pastor of the First Church in New Haven; from 1866 to 1871, acting professor of revealed theology in Yale, and afterwards lecturer on ecclesiastical polity and American Church history. He was one of the editors of the Christian Spectator, and later an editor of the New Englander; also, for 15 years, one of the editors of the New York Independent. Dr. Bacon edited the Select Practical Writings of Richard Baxter, with a Life of the Author (2 vols.. New Haven, Conn., 1844); and of his other writings may be mentioned, Thirteen Historical Discourses on the Completion of Two Hundred Years, from the Beginning of the First Church in New Haven, with an Appendix (New Haven, Conn., 1839); Slavery Discussed in Occasional Essays from 1833 to 1846 (New York, 1846), and particularly The Genesis of the New England Churches (New York, 1871) — an important volume.

BACON, D.D. (1830—). An American clergyman, born in New Haven, Conn.; a son of Leonard Bacon. He graduated at Yale in 1850, and after officiating as a clergyman in various places was pastor of the First Church in Litchfield, Conn., of the New England Congregational Church in Brooklyn, and of the First Church in Stamford, Conn. Subsequently he passed several years in Europe, chiefly in Geneva, as student, preacher, and writer; was pastor of the Park Congregational Church in Norwich, Conn. (1878-82), and later of other Congregational and Presbyterian churches. He edited Luther's Deutsche geistliche Lieder (New York, 1883), and wrote Irenics and Polemics, with Sundry Essays in Church History (1895); History of American Christianity (New York, 1897; London, 1899); Young People's Societies (with C. A. Northrup, 1900), and other religious works.

BACON, (1648-76). An English colonist, famous as the leader of 'Bacon's Rebellion' in Virginia, in 1676. He was the son of Thomas Bacon of Friston Hall, Suffolk, whose grandfather was cousin to the great Lord Bacon. Nathaniel Bacon was educated as a lawyer, and settled in Virginia in 1673, where he obtained two valuable plantations near the present Richmond, and afterwards was appointed a member of the Governor's Council. His democratic ways made him extremely popular among the colonists, who chose him to lead them against the Indians, in defiance of Governor Berkeley's commands, on the outbreak of the Indian disturbance, in 1675-76. He accepted the position, and by placing himself at the head of the colonists and proceeding against the Susquehannocks brought on what is known as 'Bacon's Rebellion.' In the midst of his operations against the Indians he was attacked by dysentery, and died on October 26, 1670, his death putting an end to the rebellion. See.