Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was an English lawyer, statesman, and philosopher, and one of the most influential thinkers of Western civilization. He was admitted to the bar in 1582, was knighted in 1603, and became Lord Chancellor of England in 1618. Bacon’s luck ran out, though, in 1621 when was sentenced to a fine and imprisonment for accepting “gifts” from litigants. Tradition holds that Bacon contracted a fatal illness while experimenting on preservation of flesh by cold, and he died with his reputation and social status imputed.