John Locke was in many ways very similar to Bacon is his philosophy, specifically his belief in empiricism. In Locke’s work, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding he laid out that all ideas came about through a process of sense experience and reflection, that through abstraction allows us to gain knowledge and formulate more complex ideas. It seems as though Bacon was not a firm believer in this principle regarding all ideas or knowledge, but when it came to the realm of natural philosophy and scientific knowledge, Bacon believed that it was only through a process which relied on experimentation, observation, and abstraction, that we could come to scientific conclusions as only experimentation and observation were able to rule out other competing ideas as not feasible (De Augmentis Scientiarum 5ii, 410). Even the formulation of hypotheses comes from the observation of the natural world, but Bacon disagrees with just an anticipation of nature, and wants to interpret nature in order to find an underlying cause for things (Novum Organum I, viii & xxv). Though I don’t know Locke’s specific stance on this, in presenting his ideas he seems to not have a concern for putting forward the causes of such things, like why sensation and reflection lead to simple ideas in our minds, rather, Locke seems content with simply the observation and description of such phenomena. It seems then that Locke is just anticipating nature from Bacon’s point of view through the simple ideas it gives us. To go beyond that for Locke and create complex ideas or apply judgements to our simple ideas will lead us directly to error.
Another possible difference between the two thinkers would seem to be the idea of nativism, that there are some ideas that are imprinted onto us from birth. Much of Locke’s essay is actually devoted to the dissection of this line of thought, and he encourages the reader to examine all the ideas they have to see if there are some which have not come to them through reflection and sensation. Though Bacon does not talk too much about the nature of nativism, it seems as though some of his idols that he refers to seem to be native ideas imprinted onto us, primarily the Idols of the Tribe and the Idols of the Cave. The Idols of the Tribe are errors we make in judgement and faulty sense perception that seem to come from our nature as humans and preconceived ideas we have, though it could just as well be argued that such notions are not imprinted but rather learned through experience (Novum Organum I, xlv. The Idols of the Cave, being the prejudices we have from our particular nature may also be an imprinted idea, or the beliefs and experiences we accumulate altering our judgement (Novum Organum I, liv), Bacon does not seem to take a particular stance on nativism as it isn’t altogether that important to his philosophy. Bacon wants us to rid ourselves of these idols anyways, as he believes that they only serve to lead us to error, and make false assumptions and conclusions based on what we thought we experienced but were actually independent judgements based on prejudice. Locke believes that these errors also come from false judgement (Book II, Chapter 9) that alters our perception of things as we experience them. These false judgements are basically a force of habit that happens so quickly and unconsciously that we are unable to notice it. It seems that Locke doesn’t really make a value judgement on this nature, only noting that it exists.
Locke and Bacon do seem to agree on an approach of starting from nothing. For Bacon, this requires ridding ourselves of the Idols that create error in our judgements and then proceeding to consistently apply his experimental methods in order to lead us to correct judgements and perceptions. Locke famously refers to the mind as a white sheet of paper or a blank slate to start, starting with nothing, from where we can understand where all ideas come from afterwards by seeing how they then arise in an individual from nothing. The major difference between the two is Bacon is making a normative claim, how we should think about things, while Locke is making a descriptive claim, this is how ideas actually come about. That seems to be one of their major disagreements, and it comes from each of them having widely different philosophical projects. Locke is primarily focused on the nature of understanding, how it comes about, and denying the common rationalist claims of the time as not fully grasping or understanding what is happening with ideas whereas Bacon is concerned with reinventing scientific thinking specifically, and presenting an approach that he believes will overcome the current shortcomings of the prevailing scientific thought at the time.
Bacon’s ideas of natures are very similar to Locke’s nature of ideas. Locke conceived of ideas as starting from simple ideas, that were obtained through either sensation or reflection, multiple sensations, or sensation and reflection. He believed that these simple ideas were not distinguishable into different ideas or divisible, but could be compounded into infinite varieties of complex ideas (Book II, Chapter II § 2). Any one object may be able to create many simple ideas in our mind that are all united in one body (Book II, Chapter II § 1) In the Novum Organum, Bacon proposed that all bodies are collections of simple natures, such as gold being yellow, heavy to a certain weight, malleable, etc (Novum Organum II, v). To Bacon, these ideas can be infinitely compounded to create all that there is, but it’s questionable whether Bacon views such simple natures as being as particular as Locke does, specific to the certain idea they produce in the mind, rather than just being the properties of some bodies. However, Bacon describing gold as heavy to a certain weight and melting at a certain point makes me inclined to believe that these simple natures are particular.
One last interesting point of agreement these two had was that of atomism. Bacon derived his atomism simply through the use of his scientific method but conceived of them as uniform, lacking simple natures, and not being able to coexist with a vacuum (Works V, 419-423), but it seems like overall Bacon was less firmly committed to atomism. Though we don’t know Locke’s specific conception of atomism, it appears he was inspired by Boyle’s atomism, and in many ways, his theory of simple ideas compounding into complex ideas was based on his atomism. Locke even likens the indivisible nature of simple ideas to atomism (Book II, Chapter II § 2) so it seems Locke has a firm commitment to atomism. Both philosophers believed in atomism to varying degrees, however, it seems Bacon’s theories led him to atomism whereas Locke’s atomism led him to his theories.
Overall, I believe that though these philosophers end up having varying interpretations of things, they have a strikingly similar outlook on the world. I believe that this comes from both of them focusing primarily on empiricism as the basis for their philosophies, which led them to certain methods and views of nature that have variations, but a strong empiricist foundation.
Bacon, Francis. Novum Organum. Edited by Robert Leslie Ellis and James Spedding. Routledge, 1900.
Bacon, Francis. The Works. Edited by Robert Leslie Ellis, Douglas Denon Heath, and James Spedding. 15 vols. London, 1857.
Bacon, Francis. The Works. Edited by James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, Douglas Denon Heath, and William Rawley. 15 vols. Boston: Taggard & Thompson, 1861. Francis Bacon.
Bacon, Francis. The Works. Edited by J. Spedding, R. L. Ellis, and D. D. Heath. 7 vols., 1889.