Bacon’s “Of Studies” — A Guide for the Curious (4133, Masroor Ahmad)

 Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was an English politician, a man of impeccable style and wit, born into power and influence, but, most importantly, he was a philosopher foremost in a time when the relationship between God and man was straining as the latter attempted to understand himself without God through observation and analysis of the natural world in order to reach an "objective" truth. In such a divine endeavor, Bacon, the empiricist, played an indispensable and curious role by providing basis for inductive method of reasoning that was to be further polished to an almost perfection by his successors, John Locke (1632-1704) and David Hume (1711-1776). Considering his time, Bacon becomes part of a transitional period that led to Enlightenment and, simultaneously, an essential man of his time.

Bacon's writing style was influenced heavily by the French philosopher, Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), who was himself a witty essayist of his time and condensed his philosophical thoughts into aphoristic emblems to be thought over throughout one's life and digested with experiential knowledge and logical observations. Much like Montaigne, Bacon too has a compacting writing style that allows him to showcase his English humor and philosophical thinking in short pieces of prose, "Of Studies" being one of them.

This essay discourses upon the nature of learning and learned men, glossing over the types of books and book readers and provides an expository understanding of how the knowledge accumulated from texts can be harmonically understood through the gaze of a mature observer of the real life. There is a clear demarcation, since the start, between purposes of studies, i.e. for entertainment, adornment, and capabilities. Learning is presented as an almost moral task and one that intersects a learned man's private and public life both, and manifests itself as an epitomized synthesis of dialectical ideas usurped from the conversations with other curious men, delectable books, written by ancient rusty hands of dead philosophers and breathing souls of contemporary times, and a introspecting analysis of one's own being through writing. Thus, "Of Studies" becomes a timeless guide for the curious souls of Baconian times and today.