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Two recollections only have been preserved of his early years.
One is that, as he told his chaplain, Dr. Rawley, late in life, he
had discovered, as far back as his Cambridge days, the
"unfruitfulness" of Aristotle's method. It is easy to make too much
of this. It is not uncommon for undergraduates to criticise their
text-books; it was the fashion with clever men, as, for instance,
Montaigne, to talk against Aristotle without knowing anything about
him; it is not uncommon for men who have worked out a great idea to
find traces of it, on precarious grounds, in their boyish thinking.
Still, it is worth noting that Bacon himself believed that his
fundamental quarrel with Aristotle had begun with the first efforts
of thought, and that this is the one recollection remaining of his
early tendency in speculation. The other is more trustworthy, and exhibits that
inventiveness which was characteristic of his mind. He tells us in
the De Augmentis that when he was in France he occupied
himself with devising an improved system of cypher-writing—a
thing of daily and indispensable use for rival statesmen and rival
intriguers. But the investigation, with its call on the calculating
and combining faculties, would also interest him, as an example of
the discovery of new powers by the human mind.
In the beginning of 1579 Bacon, at eighteen, was called home by
his father's death. This was a great blow to his prospects. His
father had not accomplished what he had intended for him, and
Francis Bacon was left with only a younger son's "narrow portion."
What was worse, he lost one whose credit would have served him in
high places. He entered on life, not as he might have expected,
independent and with court favour on his side, but with his very
livelihood to gain—a competitor at the bottom of the ladder
for patronage and countenance. This great change in his fortunes
told very unfavourably on his happiness, his usefulness, and, it
must be added, on his character. He accepted it, indeed, manfully,
and at once threw himself into the study of the law as the
profession by which he was to live. But the law, though it was the
only path open to him, was not the one which suited his genius, or
his object in life. To the last he worked hard and faithfully, but
with doubtful reputation as to his success, and certainly against
the grain. And this was not the worst. To make up for the loss of
that start in life of which his father's untimely death had
deprived him, he became, for almost the rest of his life, the most
importunate and most untiring of suitors.
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