Francis Bacon and the Moral Material of Individual Knowledge in Seventeenth-Century England

This thesis explores the distinction between the individual and collective domains of goodness and moral virtue as delineated by Francis Bacon (1561-1626). Bacon contends that the human qualities of individual reason, goodness and moral virtue must guide the mind and body in the pursuit of knowledge, and, in particular, in the practice of natural inquiry. Bacon prescribes that the self-construction and cultivation of the inquirer’s individual goodness and the subsequent husbandry of the moral virtues must precede the endeavour to engage in the interpretation of nature. This study thus diverges from historiography that prioritises the collaborative element of Baconian inquiry and the epistemological authority of communitarian consensus in the acquisition of natural knowledge. My analysis finds that Bacon’s precepts for the operative pursuit of natural inquiry emphasise the self-disciplined sensory-intellectual engagement with nature and transmission of knowledge through literary record. The authority of consensus in assessing the epistemological worth of new knowledge is unreliable and susceptible to persuasion. This work further examines the activities of Samuel Hartlib (1600-1662), John Dury (1596-1680), and Robert Boyle (1627-1691) in the respective contexts of their intersecting careers as each adopted Bacon’s precepts to the ends of their own individual endeavours. It argues that Boyle is particularly motivated by Bacon’s philosophy to undertake a life of experimental practice founded on the material of individual goodness and moral virtue. As such, he is an exemplar of the morally sound, independent inquirer envisioned by Bacon.