F. Bacon's Philanthropy and Renovation of Learning for the Benefit of Mankind

Abstract

Philanthropy, a rather unfamiliar term in Japan, was derived from a Greek word φιλανθρωπια that meant love to mankind. When the English word 'philanthropy' was coined in the early seventeenth century, it acquired a specific meaning in connection with the Christian view of mankind and it was Francis Bacon who used this word in this connotation.Man is a specially privileged kind of creature above all others but is put in a miserable condition because he has been banished from Paradise owing to his disobedience to God. So the first thing man has to do is to recover Paradise. This is, however, entirely unattainable by man's effort, but is made attainable by the coming and the secondcoming of Christ the Saviour.Then, has man simply to wait for the second coming of Christ while only staying in deep sympathy with one another for man's common misery? Bacon fully recognized this misery for which he had deep sympathy. This was the first part of his philanthropy. Further and more positively he thought he had discoverd a new method of learning according to which one could promote human welfare and decrease the amount of human misery. This would partly recover Paradise. So Bacon proposed this method and invited people to co-operate with him in his project. Such was the essence of Bacon's philanthropy.The response was immediate in the Western countries, as they started to organize scientific societies, the Royal Society of London to begin with, and to publish encyclopaedias, “for the benefit of mankind” by “promoting useful knowledge among people.” Creation of various philanthropic institutions followed.It was just at this time when John Milton in London was composing his Paradise Lost and then Paradise Regained that Robert Hooke of the Royal Society of London wrote the following remark, which exactly, echoed Bacon's desideratum, in the Preface to his scientific work Micrographia (1665) : And as at first, mankind fell by tasting of the forbidden Tree of knowledge, so we, their Posterity, may be in part restor'd by the same way, not only by beholding and contemplating, but by tasting too those fruits of Natural knowledge, that were never yet forbidden.This was no mere coincidence but convincing evidence to indicate that the Western people were most keenly concerned about the loss and regaining of Paradise and that Milton's great literary work and Bacon's philanthropy both came out of this same rudimentary concern for the human destiny.