FRANCIS BACON: Philosopher of Industrial Revolution

Profound research has gone into this exhaustive study of the precursor of the humanistic view of science and his works, and the result is astonishingly immediate in its interest and importance. All knowledge was his goal -- and probably he came as near achieving it as any man who ever lived. But the revolutionary idea that science ought to be applicable to the needs of man, to industry as then conceived, and that knowledge ought to bear tangible fruit, is here traced in its development throughout his voluminous writings. Other interests in a full life- his political career, a stormy one with an ignominious end, and the effect of external events on his life, are touched upon so as to make this a rounded story of the whole man, in an era (1561-1626) that gave the world three great discoveries,- the printing press, gunpowder, the compass. While Bacon was often wrong in his assumptions (he rejected the findings of Copernicus for instance), his overall approach to the marriage of science and industry ushered in a new era. Special.