The Essays

The genius of Francis Bacon is nowhere better revealed than in his essays.

Bacon’s education was grounded in the classical texts of ancient Greece and Rome, but he brought vividness and colour to the arid scholasticism of medieval book-learning. Whatever their subject, whether it is something as personal as ‘Friendship’ or as abstract as ‘Truth’, the essays combine a mixture of rhetoric and philosophy; and are perhaps the most complete and rounded examples of Bacon’s literary style. Rather than merely summarizing popular philosophy or producing glib expositions of correct conduct, Bacon attempted to change the shape of other men’s minds. He believed that rhetoric, as the force of eloquence and persuasion, could incline the mind towards the pure light of reason.