Bacon, Hobbes, Rousseau

Howard White traces out a bit of Bacon’s lineage as a political philosopher:

“Young Hobbes had accompanied Bacon on some of his walks, and Bacon delighted in his company. And Hobbes was to establish a system of political philosophy on principles of motion, precisely as Bacon ahd urged, taking his bearing by human appetites and desires.” While “Bacon would have considered Hobbes’ effort premature,” Hobbes’ formulation of two maxims of human nature – the concuspicible, desire for appropriation; the rational, avoiding dissolution – had strong “affinity with Bacon’s natural appetite and natural repugnance.”

Rousseau, for his pat, claimed that “perhaps the greatest philosopher who ever lived was Lord Chancellor of England.” Rousseau was not an admirer of Hobbes, nor was he interested in the dissemination of science, but he considered Bacon exalted: his “eage spirit soared.” Like Bacon Rousseau saw himself as “a voluntary outcast,” exiled and hoping for the appearance of Prometheus. But “the dependence of Rousseau on Bacon is by no means confined to the striking simliarity in the role of the philosopher or the solitary promeneur. In his discussion of civil religion, Rousseau acknowledges that only Hobbes has seen the necessity to unite church and state under political control. In this, however, Hobbes followed Bacon and, indeed, Machiavelli, as Rousseau certainly knew. Rousseau’s own civil religion, with men living in peace, yet capable of uniting ruthlessly against the enemies of their civil religion, bears a close correspondence to that of Bacon.”