Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Bacon recognized that knowledge's greatest obstacle wasn't ignorance but confident belief in falsehoods. He termed these fixed prejudices "idols" and argued systematic observation and rigorous experimentation offered the only escape route.

His 1620 Novum Organum presented new methods for acquiring knowledge, rejecting Aristotelian deduction for inductive logic built from observed facts. This challenged fifteen centuries of intellectual tradition and became profoundly consequential. The Royal Society, founded 1660, cited Bacon as intellectual father. Modern empirical science rests on foundations he designed. Beyond philosophy, he served as lawyer, essayist, and Lord Chancellor before bribery conviction ended his political career. He died in 1626 from pneumonia contracted while testing whether cold preserves meat - exactly the experiment he would have approved.