Idols of the

Imagination:
Francis Bacon on the
Imagination and the
Medicine of the Mind
Sorana Corneanu

University of Bucharest
Koen Vermeir

CNRS, Paris (UMR 7219)

We propose to read Francis Bacons doctrine of the idols of the mind as an investigation rmly entrenched in his mental-medicinal concerns and we argue
that an important role therein is played by the imagination. Looking at the
ways in which the imagination serves to pinpoint several crucial aspects of the
idolic mind permits us to signal the explicit or implicit cross-references between what in Bacons tree of knowledge appear as distinct branches: the various faculties and their arts; the mind, the body, and their league; natural
philosophy, moral philosophy, and the philosophy of man. The consequence of
this rich picture of the diagnosis of the mind is an equally rich conception of
the cure, which comprises both epistemic and physiological aspects. We extract
the features of this integrated view out of Bacons epistemological and medical
natural historical writings, which we propose to read in tandem. We also
propose a number of sources for Bacons views on the imagination, whose variety accounts for the multivalent, sometimes elusive, but surely pervasive role of
the imagination in the Baconian diagnosis and cure of the mind.
Introduction

Francis Bacon presented his doctrine of the idols of the mind as a new theory of error, one that is apt to identify the root of cognitive errors in a
better way than traditional logic. It can do so because it looks beyond logical formal fallacies into the corrupt inner workings of the human mind
We would like to thank Richard Serjeantson and Dana Jalobeanu for a number of valuable
comments and suggestions, as well as Guido Giglioni for his editorial help.
Perspectives on Science 2012, vol. 20, no. 2
2012 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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and into its ill complexion or corrupt and ill-ordered predisposition

(Distributio operis, OFB XI, p. 34; De augmentis scientiarum V, SEH IV,
p. 431). Such a theory, therefore, needs to avail itself of a doctrine of
the mind and its operations and will thus be rooted in a description of the
good and bad functioning of the human faculties. At the same time,
the diagnosis of the troubles of the idol-producing mind is part of a project of offering helps to the human faculties. In several places, Bacon renders this idea by means of medical language: both the investigation of the
sources of the idols and the method for the legitimate pursuit of natural
knowledge are invested with the role of a cure or remedy or purging
of the mind (Novum organum I.xxx, I.lix, I.cxv, II.xxviii, OFB XI, pp. 75,
93, 172, 296; De augmentis scientiarum V, SEH IV, p. 433). There is thus a
mental-medicinal aspect to Bacons epistemological and methodological
project that allows us to extend the relevance of his phrase medicina mentis,
used explicitly in the context of his moral philosophy, to his reections on
the best way to proceed in natural philosophy.1
In the scheme of the De augmentis scientiarum, the doctrine of the idols
belongs to the intellectual or logical arts that deal with the rational
faculties (reason, imagination, and memory), which, together with the
ethical art of the appetites, will, and affections of man, form the members
of the investigation of the faculties of the soul. The doctrine of the soul
and its faculties is, by the side of the doctrines of the body and of the
league between mind and body, a branch of the philosophy of human nature. Despite the neatness of this classication, though, there are multiple
intersections among the branches of Bacons tree of knowledge. In this paper we will be concerned with such intersections as they obtain between
the various faculties, between the soul and the body, and between the philosophy of man, natural philosophy, and moral philosophy. In particular,
we want to argue that the imagination plays a hitherto underappreciated
role in the explanation of the idolic mind; that, largely owing to the imaginations role, there is a physiological counterpart to Bacons views of the
diagnosis and cure of the mind; and that the imagination is an important
ingredient in the moral, or mental-medicinal, aspect of Bacons epistemological project.2
1. For the ancient traditions of the cure of the soul, see Hadot 1995; for the early modern context, see the Introduction and the other contributions to this volume.
2. The role of the imagination in explaining the idols of the mind and their physiological basis in brain traces and the movements of spirits would be explored by
Malebranche (1674, Livre II) with explicit reference to Bacon. On the moral aspects of Bacons philosophical project in general, and of his epistemology in particular, see especially
Gaukroger 2001; Jalobeanu 2010; Corneanu 2011, chap. 1. Technically, the use of the
term epistemology for an early modern context is anachronistic, yet we believe that the

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After an introductory section on the Baconian imagination, we will detail two core imagination-based troubles and their corresponding epistemic cures. In a nal section, we show that Bacon was equally interested
in the physiological basis of distorted mental states and misguided thinking. Signicantly, he uses medical vocabulary in describing the errors of
the mind (for instance as peccant humours), as well as in ascribing to
well-directed knowledge pursuit medicinal virtues, such as purging the
minds humors, opening its obstructions, helping its digestion, etc. (Advancement of Learning I, OFB IV, pp. 28, 50). Although Bacon did not fully
develop this line of thought, we want to suggest that there is more than
mere metaphor to this vocabulary. The diseases of the mind are not only
comparable with the diseases of the body but also in many ways intertwined with them. There are only sparse suggestions in this sense in Bacons epistemological accounts, which can nevertheless be eshed out if we
look at the physiological considerations (centered on the imagination and
the spirits) in his natural historical and medical writings. We propose to
read them in tandem with the epistemological writings, which will make
it apparent that for Bacon the medicina mentis is, ideally, an integrated cure,
with epistemic and physiological aspects.
The Baconian Imagination

The role of the imagination in Bacons account of the idols of the mind has
received only scarce attention.3 This is surprising in view of the tradition
of attributing cognitive error to the imagination, a tradition that was
well-established by the time Bacon was writing. Bacon clearly identies
the prime object of the imaginationthe images received from the
sensesas a component of the idols of the mind. In a sketch of the process
of cognition, he writes that the sense sends all kinds of images [idola] to
imagination for reason to judge of [Ratio judicat] (De augmentis scientiarum
V, SEH IV, p. 406; I, p. 615). The faculties of memory, imagination, and
reason process the images (imagines) or impressions (impressiones) which
have access to the mind through the senses and reasons role is to abstract
way we employ it here does not amount to vicious anachronism (see Jardine 2000), since
we use it in the general sense of a theory of knowledge (as we do epistemic in the sense
of relating to knowledge), which need not refer to an institutionalized sub-discipline of
philosophy. Bacon has been read anachronistically in the secondary literature that treats
what it takes to be his ethics, epistemology, and physiology separately. We argue that these
are branches of a unitary endeavor and thus should be considered together, but in order to
make this argument, it is useful to use exactly these terms.
3. But see Park 1974 and 1984. For more on Bacon and other aspects of the imagination, see Harrison 1957; McCreary 1973; Cocking 1984; Fattori 1984; Park et.al. 1984;
Butler 2006; Jacquet 2006; Giglioni 2010a.

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notions from these impressions (De augmentis scientiarum II, SEH IV,
pp. 29293; I, pp. 49495; Descriptio globi intellectualis, OFB VI, pp. 96
98). The idols are described as either false images (imagines) (De augmentis
scientiarum V, SEH IV, pp. 430, 433; I, pp. 641, 645) or as notions that are
corrupt, disordered, and recklessly abstracted from things (Proemium,
Instauratio magna, OFB XI, p. 2).
The idols, therefore, are either images, or notions derived from images,
of individual things.4 There is a neutral sense of the term (describing the
images) and there is also an evaluative sense, which points to the corruption of the images. The corruption is largely due to the disturbed functioning of the various faculties or operations of the mind. The problem lies
not so much with the senses as with the internal workings of the imagination and reason. For Bacon, the senses are incapable of penetrating into the
hidden structure of things (made up of the activity of the pneumatic spirits) (Novum organum I.l, OFB XI, p. 87), but a skeptical refutation of the
senses is misguided. The senses are trustworthy, but only if the right
methods for creating correct notions have been employed, by collecting
and comparing individual images, by making invisible phenomena visible
with the help of instruments or experiments, and, above all, by setting
right the minds inordinate tendencies. Bacon writes: But they [the skeptics] ought to haue charged the deceit vpon the weaknes of the intellectual
powers, et vpon the maner of collecting, et concluding vpon the reports of the sences.
This I speake not to disable the minde of man, but to stirre it vp to seeke
helpe (Advancement of Learning II, OFB IV, p. 111; cf. De augmentis scientiarum, SEH IV, p. 412). The help offered by the Baconian method to the
intellectual powers of man is based on a most painstaking dissection and
anatomy of nature, which should be able to correct the corrupted tendencies of the mind issuing in fancies (phantasiae) and idols or arbitrary abstractions (Novum organum I.cxxiv, OFB XI, p. 187). The aim is to acquire
a renewed capacity to see the facts of nature, a true vision of the Creators footprints and impressions upon His creatures, instead of surrendering to a fantastic dream (Distributio operis, OFB XI, p. 45). The right
way of pursuing natural investigations is to clear and direct the inquirers
eyes in a new and legitimate way. But the seeing in question is an activity of the whole mind, rather than simply of the senses.5
In Bacons sketch of the process of cognition mentioned above, the
4. The (neutral) designation of the images processed by the faculties of the soul as idola
was current at the time. See Graham Rees discussion in OFB XI, pp. 5068. Other relevant sources besides those listed by Rees include Velcurio 1537, p. 31; Charron 1606,
p. 46. Rees attributes Bacons view of the corruption of the idola to a Platonic inuence; in
this paper we will propose different routes to this question.
5. Ian Stewart (2011) has interestingly suggested the primacy of sense and sensation in

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imagination and reason feature in the description of a basic mechanism

that has two main components: the formation of the internal image and
the act of judgment. At rst sight, this picture resembles the Aristotelian
explanation of cognition, but Bacon elaborates it in marked contrast with
the standard scholastic account.6 Instead, he follows the Stoic model
which, we will argue, is an important, albeit unexplored, source of Bacons
views on the imagination and the epistemic process. Bacon transparently
refers to this model in his discussion of the arts of judgment and of discovery in the De augmentis scientiarum V. As far as judgment in natural inquiry
is concerned, he writes, the same action of the mind which discovers the
thing in question judges it; and the operation is not performed by help of
any middle term, but directly, almost in the same manner as by the sense.
For the sense in its primary objects at once apprehends the appearance of
the object, and consents to the truth thereof (SEH IV, p. 428). This passage, which establishes the apprehension of the image and the consent as
the basic mechanism of cognition, is cross-referenced by Bacon with the
earlier paragraphs that discuss the art of discovery, where he criticizes the
doctrine of acatalepsia (SEH IV, p. 412). This doctrine was discussed in
Ciceros Academic Books (Academica 2.18, in Cicero 2006, p. 12), which
relate the debate between the skeptics and the Stoics on the questions of
knowledge and of the criteria of truth. Much of this debate rested on the
Stoic account of cognition as a process where the mind is presented with
an impression or image-like imprint in the material soul (phantasia), to
which it gives its assent (sunkatathesis).7 Bacons account is largely parallel
to this model: the image received from the senses mirrors the phantasia
and reasons judgment mirrors the sunkathatesis. Moreover, his picture of
the malfunctioning of the epistemic process is also closer to Stoic and
Stoic-inspired early modern accounts than to the scholastic tradition, as
we will see below.
The early modern imagination is a complex and shifting historical
product resulting from the accretion of several traditions of thought,
mainly Aristotelian and Platonic, but also Stoic. Bacons account of the
Bacons picture of the correct process of cognition. But the renovated seeing is in fact the
product of the whole minds renovated activity.
6. On late scholastic conceptions of the faculties and of the process of cognition, see
Park 1988; Kessler 1988; Michael 2000, pp. 14772.
7. On Stoic theory, see Long and Sedley 1987, pp. 23638, 240; Frede 1999, p. 301;
Sorabji 2000, pp. 6172. The reference to Ciceros Academica was recognizable to Bacons
contemporaries: see Gilbert Watts marginal note in his translation of the De augmentis
scientiarum (Bacon, 1640, p. 225); see also Brian Vickers note in Bacon, 1996, p. 636. For
the attribution of this basic cognitive mechanism to both mind and sense, see Academica
2.30 (Cicero 2006, p. 20).

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imagination was shaped by this variegated intellectual inheritance, but we

want to show that some of the major features of this account are best understood as indebted to a late Renaissance interpretation of Stoic thought.8
In the process of appropriating the Stoic phantasia, the early moderns performed a signicant interpretative shift. For the Stoics, phantasia was the
image in the soul, conceived as one of the three fundamental functions (impression, assent, and impulse) of their unied mind. The early moderns,
though, integrated the phantasia into what has been called their faculty
psychology (Park 1974; Lyons 2005) and in the hands of, for instance,
Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola or Michel de Montaigne, this term
came to name, often indiscriminately, both the image in the soul and the
faculty processing it.9 The Stoics had a unied conception of the mind,
however, and this helps to explain why authors inspired by Stoicism often
did not make clear distinctions among the faculties. Indeed, Bacon never
aimed at giving a coherent and systematic theory of the imagination;
moreover, he worked with tentative accounts of both the faculties of the
mind and the process of cognition, making the task of pinpointing the
exact role of the different faculties difcult.10 Furthermore, the concept
of imagination was used in different contexts, in order to explain not
only the process of cognition but also the formation of the passions, morality, the effects of art, voluntary motion, the physiology of the brain, humors, and spirits, the inuence of stars and demons on human minds, divination, fascination, or witchcraft, to name only a few (cf. La Primaudaye
1591, pp. 15358; Vives 1543, pp. 5054; Charron 1606, pp. 48, 50,
6668). To the extent that such various uses rely on different theories of
the soul and the world and on different explanatory structures, the early
modern imagination appears as a multivalent object, or a oating concept, i.e., a concept with variable meanings that, however, performed a
crucial functional role in grounding and connecting different discourses
(Vermeir 2004, pp. 56970).
The Wings of the Imagination and Fantastical Philosophies

The Baconian imagination, we propose, governs various descriptions of

the disturbed mind falling into two main categories, which we will investigate in this and the next section: one has to do with the tendency of the
8. For other aspects of the Stoic connection to Bacon, see the papers by Harrison, Jalobeanu, and Giglioni in this volume.
9. The distorting appropriation relied to a great extent on a problem of translation: the
Stoic became in early modern vocabulary imaginatiorather than visio or visum,
as Cicero had translated it (Park 1974, pp. 13940; Brittain 2006, p. xli).
10. On Bacons account of the faculties, see Wallace 1967; Tonelli Olivieri 1991. Specically on Bacons account of memory, see Lewis 2009.

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mind to hurriedly leave behind the facts of nature and become involved in
its own speculations (the ight of the imagination); the other refers to
the minds propensity to seek rest and stagnation, with the result that it
also avoids the comprehensive and rigorous examination of particulars (the
striking and lling of the imagination). In turn, these malfunctions
also point to the kinds of remedies Bacons natural philosophical method
is expected to administer to the human mind, which have to do, respectively, with the need to train the mind to see the particulars of nature
(rather than engage in a speculative ight away from them) and with the
need to accustom the mind to seeing these particulars in a new, correct
way (which involves the acquisition of a capacity not to rest in the familiar
and convenient but to discover the strange and unexpected).
One key error-producing problem of the human mind is a hasty running away from the particulars of experience, which is bound to produce
fantastical philosophies. The idea is rehearsed throughout Bacons writings, in a variety of forms. One prominent instance is in his critique of
the traditional schools of philosophy. For instance, the Empirical family
of the alchemists base their philosophy on too few experiments which
come to infect their imagination and then allow a premature and precipitate onrush of the intellect and its tendency to jump the gun and y
off towards the generalities and principles of things (Novum organum
I.lxiv, OFB XI, p. 101). Also, the way of the rational family of the Aristotelian scholastics is to make a sparse collection of undigested and poorly
ascertained common notions and to leave the rest to meditation and intellectual agitation (ingenij agitatio) (I.lxii, OFB XI, p. 99).11 Bacon repeatedly condemns the agitation of wit that makes the philosopher seek
truths about nature in his own head rather than in the volume of the creatures and the true order of experience (I.lxxxii, OFB XI, p. 131).12
The imagination is used here in two main ways: one is to signal the
very departure from or disregard of the facts of experience, which issues in
a fantastical dream. This use is closest to the description of the imagination as the faculty governing poetry, as that which performs fanciful imitations of things, according to the pleasure of the mind rather than to
the nature of things, since it is not bound by any law and necessity of nature or matter (De augmentis scientiarum II, SEH IV, p. 293; Descriptio globi
intellectualis, OFB VI, pp. 9698). The other use is to identify specic ir11. For some variation in the comparative assessment of the schools of philosophy, see
Filum labyrinthi, SEH III, p. 504. See also Novum organum I.lxv, OFB XI, pp. 1003, De
augmentis scientiarum III, SEH IV, p. 367.
12. Cf. two other instances of the agitation of wit in Advancement I, OFB IV, pp. 24,
30, rendered in the De augmentis scientiarum as spiritus agitatio and mentis agitatio (SEH I,
pp. 453, 461).

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regular motions of the mind in the process of cognition: the agitation

whereby it insulates itself from experimental facts and the ight to universals. The latter is identied as one of the basic problems of the idolic
mind in the early aphorisms of the Novum organum: the mind longs to
leap up to higher generalities to nd rest there; and after a short while
scorns experience (I.xx, OFB XI, p. 71). This is ultimately the movement
of the mind responsible for faulty abstraction (and thus for the creation of
idols); it is both a natural impulse of the intellect left to itself (intellectus
sibi permissus) rather than applied to the facts of experience and the very
movement of syllogistic demonstration. The right course, therefore, is not
to allow the understanding to bounce and y from particulars to general
axioms but to teach it to follow the inductive method of a proper ladder
from lower to middle to the most general axioms (I.civ, OFB XI, p. 161).
The inordinate ight from particulars is attributed in these texts not
only to the imagination but also to the wit (ingenium), spirit (spiritus),
mind (mens), and intellect or understanding (intellectus). Spirit, wit,
and mind are interchangeable in the context of the agitation of wit
passages. Traditionally, wit was seen as closely linked to imagination.13
Moreover, spirit in these contexts is likely to be equivalent to Bacons
spiritus or corporeal sensitive soul (which takes impressions, like the imagination, and is thus the very corporeal medium through which the imagination performs its functions).14 The differences in attribution indicate
subtle shifts of connotation, but as far as our analysis is concerned here,
the ight of these faculties is closely linked to the imagination, which, in
turn, is associated with the agitation of the spirits that underpin the physiology of Bacons faculties, to which we will turn in the nal section of this
paper.
The role of the imagination in the description of a particular phenomenon of the disturbed mindits restlessness, agitation, and ightwas
not a Baconian novelty: a comparable approach, which may have well
inuenced Bacon, was in the chapters devoted to the soul in Pierre
Charrons De la sagesse (1601, English translation 1606), a systematization
of Neo-Stoic ideas based on the work of Montaigne, Guillaume Du Vair
and others.15 Charron writes that the mind or spirit (esprit) of man is in a
13. On ingenium in the medieval and Renaissance tradition, see Goodey 2004. On
ingenium in Bacon, see Lewis 2011.
14. The sensitive soul is made of an invisible corporeal substance that has the softness
of air to receive impressions and the vigor of re to propagate its action. In humans, this
sensitive soul is the instrument of the rational soul, and may be more tly termed not
soul, but spirit (De augmentis scientiarum IV, SEH IV, p. 398).
15. These references serve to reinforce the Bacon-Charron connection that has been noticed in other studies, most notably in Vickers 1996, p. 214.

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perpetuall motion without rest, without bound; it is a perpetuall agent

that forgeth false and phantasticall subjects and runs riot into a world
of imaginations (Charron 1606, p. 58). At the same time, the imagination itself is described as that which makes all the stirre, all the clatter,
yea the perturbation of the world; it is the most active and stirring
facultie of the Soule (p. 66). Charron explains that the volubility of the
spirit is due to the perpetual motion of the body, to the innity of the objects the soul applies itself to, as well as to the shakings and tremblings
it gives itself through agitation and passions (p. 59). He supports this description with a (slightly adapted) passage from Senecas Ad Helviam matrem, de consolatione, which similarly speaks of the corrupt restlessness of the
human mind (anima), possibly generated by the perpetual motion of its
source, the heavenly bodies (Seneca 1932, pp. 43133).16 In both Charron
and Seneca there is a material, physiological counterpart to the motion of
the soul they describe. The same holds for Bacon, who writes that one
of the primary appetites of the spirit is to exercise and enjoy its own nature by motion and agitation (De vijs mortis, OFB VI, p. 287). Perpetual
motion is also the natural condition of the soul, which enjoys no rest (De
augmentis scientiarum IV, SEH IV, p. 380).17
Charron goes on to explain that due to this agitation, the spirit entangles itself in its own work like a silk-worm, in the same way that Bacon
says that by its agitation the wit entangles itself as in a spiders web (Charron 1606, p. 59; Bacon, Advancement of Learning II, OFB IV, p. 24). This is
also why, Charron adds, the spirit needs lead more than wings, a bridle
more than a spur (Charron 1606, p. 63). Similarly, Bacon writes that the
correct way of induction takes the mind through gradual levels of generality, and explains its superiority over the scholastic way of syllogistic demonstration by reference to the same effect on the understanding, which
we should not supply . . . with wings but rather with leaden weights to
curb all jumping and ying up (Novum organum I.civ, OFB XI, p. 163).
One key role of the use of the imagination in the account of error,
therefore, is to explain the haste and restlessness of the mind (corre16. Other relevant descriptions of the disturbing restlessness of the imagination are in
La Primaudaye (1591, pp. 15556), which is quite close to that in Vives (1543, p. 51).
Vives also attributes perpetual vacillation and tumult to intelligentia, the rst action of the
rational soul (pp. 7980), in the same way that Charron attributes the stirring to both the
imagination and the rational esprit, and Bacon attributes the agitation to both the wit and
the intellect. References to the perpetual movement of the soul were also present in scholastic works (e.g., Velcurio 1537, pp. 42, 45) but there they served different purposes (as
Aristotelian comments on activity versus passivity), without pointing to the corrupt functioning of the faculties.
17. See also De augmentis scientiarum II, SEH IV, p. 325: the souls various cogitations
leap and frisk in endless variety and constant motion.

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Idols of the Imagination

Figure 1 The iconography of the time often portrays the imagination as a

woman with wings attached to her head. This image is from the 1976 reprint of
the 1644 Paris edition of Cesare Ripas Iconologia (rst edition 1593). Reproduced
by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

lated with a material agitation of the spirit), which Bacon reinterprets as

the precipitate ight away from particulars into a world of fantastical philosophies. The critical aspect here is that the mind left to itself and not
applied to the data of experience jumps to general principles without
enough investigation of particulars and is thus bound to produce illusory

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notions and doctrines. The course of the experimental method, Bacon believes, is apt to block such a ight of the mind. For him, experience (both
observation and experimentation) is not simply a natural philosophical
method justied in epistemological terms but also the way of approaching
nature that is the most benecial to the mind. In particular, it is capable of
rectifying precisely the specic tendency typied by the wings of the
imagination. The course of experience, in its quasi-religious capacity of
accustoming the mind to the humble contemplation of the creatures of
God (Advancement of Learning, OFB IV, p. 24; De augmentis scientiarum,
SEH I, p. 460), can temper the ight of the mind and engage it in its
proper work, which is to be applied to the facts of experience (working
according to the stuffe) and not to be left to its own speculations (working vpon it selfe and producing spiders webs out of its own substance)
(OFB IV, p. 24).
The Preoccupied Mind and the Filling of the Imagination

The imagination is central not only in Bacons representation of the

minds ight but also in the explanation of the minds preoccupation,
whereby it rests in (false) notions and no longer pursues inquiry. This is
because the imagination and the understanding are struck by and
lled with (or colored or infected by) those notions and the images
on which they are based, with the effect that the mind stagnates and is incapable of engaging in examination. One important source of the minds
indolence is its resignation to different types of authority which impress
the imagination. In the Advancement of Learning there is an instructive
classication of these types, listed under the category of fantastical learning, all of which breed a certain facilitie of credite, and accepting or admitting thinges weakely authorized or warranted: such easy credit may
be accorded because of the natural impressions of facts, of arts and opinions, and of authors on our minds (OFB IV, p. 26).
The arts and opinions that have a confederacy with mans imagination rather than with his reason are primarily astrology, alchemy, and natural magic, but also, by extension, all doctrines that are endowed with the
prestige of time or the excitement of novelty. Discoveries are not conceived possible before they are made because the imagination is informed
and coloured (praecepta et inquinata) by the old familiar doctrines. And yet
there are surely things lying well off the beaten track of fancy (extra vias
phantasiae) (Novum organum I.cix, OFB XI, pp. 16469). One just needs to
learn how to see them. When philosophers become attached to their doctrines, they will distort and corrupt all their cogitations in line with
their former fantasies. This is, Bacon comments, what happened to Aristotle, to the chemists, or to Gilbert (I.liv, OFB XI, p. 89). Authority of

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arts and opinions combines with authority of authors: the transmission of

knowledge often occurs in such a way that it grooms adepts and followers
rather than free inquirers (Advancement of Learning I, OFB IV, p. 28; Novum
organum I.lxxvii, OFB XI, p. 123). Bacon follows the early modern turn
against the cultural model of authority but adds force to this critique by
explaining that authority is the fruit of certain cognitive processes in
which the striking and coloring of the imagination play the central role.
One can escape these chains of the mind by following the initiative pedagogical models Bacon describes in his treatment of the art of tradition
(De augmentis scientiarum VI, SEH IV, pp. 44854).
As far as the easy belief of facts is concerned, Bacons examples in the
passage from the Advancement of Learning are of the unexamined reporting
of wondrous facts in both natural and ecclesiastical history. But, again in
an extended sense, certain types of natural observations also exert authority on the inquirers imagination, such as those that rely on afrmatives
and those that rely on similar rather than on remote and heterogeneous
instances. The human understanding is swayed most by those things that
can strike and enter the mind suddenly and in one go, things by which the
fantasy has grown used to be lled and inated and thus it supposes all
things to be somehow similar to those by which it is surrounded. This is
because the intellect is very slow and unsuited for rapid recourse to the
remote and heterogeneous instances by which axioms are tested as if by
re (Novum organum I.xlvii, OFB XI, p. 85). With reference to the
afrmatives, Bacon explains that the intellect is moved and excited more
by afrmatives than negatives and pulls everything else into line and
agreement with them (I.xlvi, OFB XI, pp. 835). A similar authority of
facts is involved in the common notions which form the ground of the
Aristotelian philosophy: such notions are easily persuasive since nothing
nds favour with the many unless it appeals to the imagination or ties the
intellect up in the knots of common notions (I.lxxvii, OFB XI, p. 123).
That the striking and lling are processes ttingly attributed to the
imagination is apparent in the types of accounts on which Bacon draws in
his use of this vocabulary. For one thing, the lling of the imagination is a
core process in rhetorical persuasion. Bacon writes that eloquent discourse
is able to make the distant good present by means of vivid pictures, so
lling (implere) the imagination. The imagination is thus made capable of
coming into accord with reason (De augmentis scientiarum, SEH IV, p. 457).
Likewise, in his famous defense of the art of poetry, Sir Philip Sidney described the power of the poetical speaking pictures to strike, pierce, or
possess the sight of the soul (Sidney 1595, sig. D3r). The conduit of rhetorical efcacy, and thus the object of the striking and the lling, is the
imagination and the process is invested with the benecial effects of order-

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195

ing the minds affections and representations and inducing it to moral action.18 But in the epistemic context of the idols of the mind, the striking
and the lling of the imagination have a reversed value: they illustrate the
pernicious effect of arresting the minds examination. Thus, although the
vocabulary of the striking and lling of the imagination is conspicuous in
rhetorical terms, we will have to look elsewhere for a more pertinent usage
of this language.
We propose that this alternative source is provided by the Stoic account
of the phantasia. This tradition is indeed more germane to Bacons use of
this vocabulary in the epistemic context, since it bears the negative connotations that the rhetorical usage usually lacks. The relevant sources in this
respect are the later Stoics accounts of the moral life, which make use of
early Stoic epistemology. In this context, we are told that the false or unclear impressions act on the mind or the senses in a powerful way and have
the potential of overcoming them and thus of perturbing the healthy
functioning of assent. These impressions strike my mind or senses
sharply, Cicero writes (Academica 2, 20.66, in Cicero 2006, p. 39; cf. also
Epictetus, Discourses II.18, in Epictetus 2004, pp. 1034). The striking is
the rst impact that impressions have on the mind, and their violence may
result in the minds irrational acceptation of those impressions, since it is
won over by the impression. In addition, if accustomed to responding in
the same way to the same type of impressions, it will form a habit that is
hard to eradicate. Epictetus describes the habituation by reference to the
traces that impressions leave on the mind (p. 102). Marcus Aurelius represents the same phenomenon by means of the image of the dying of the
soul by the thoughts it becomes accustomed to (Meditations V.16, in Marcus Aurelius 2004, p. 51). It is not hard to see how the action of the impressions (phantasiai), striking, overcoming, and coloring the mind, could
be translated in early modern vocabulary as the striking and lling or coloring of the imagination.19
The Stoic account combines the reference to the force and habituating
action of the impressions with the description of the ill use of assent:
18. Sidney (1595, sig. H2r) writes that mans wit can also abuse poetry and make it
Phantastike: which doth contrariwise, infect the fancie with vnworthy obiects, thus using
a terminology close to Bacons. For Bacon, too, rhetoric can have pernicious effects when it
stimulates the imagination till it becomes ungovernable (De augmentis scientiarum V, SEH
IV, p. 406).
19. The striking of the phantasia by the images received through the senses is also standard vocabulary in scholastic accounts of the process of cognition; see, e.g., Velcurio (1537,
p. 28). Yet this usage does not consider the perturbing effects of this process. Bacon also
uses the striking image in this neutral sense with reference to the senses and the memory
(Novum organum I.l, II.vi, II.xl, II.xlv, OFB XI, pp. 87, 20811, 346, 368; De augmentis
scientiarum V, SEH IV, p. 437).

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Idols of the Imagination

faced with false or unclear impressions, assent itself is mismanaged when

granted in a rash or precipitate manner.20 Bacon signals his own concern
with the issue of assent when he notes, in a general manner, the recklessness with which philosophies grant and withhold assent, a type of intemperance which establishes and perpetuates idols. While the skeptical philosophers deny that anything can be known and therefore refrain assent,
the dogmatic philosophers are too quick to ponticate and thus give assent in a precipitate and premature way (Novum organum I.lxvii, OFB XI,
p. 107). Furthermore, Bacon often combines the vocabulary of the lling
of the imagination with that of the mismanagement of assent. In the case
of the (imagination-infecting) authority of doctrines, he says that partisanship hurries assent (ad consensum abripiatur) (I.lvi, OFB XI, p. 90).
Equally, in the case of notions obtained from the investigation of nature,
we learn that anticipations (the rst conclusions of the mind in natural
inquiry, formed without enough examination of particulars) are far more
powerful than interpretations (conclusions that follow the legitimate
way of inquiry) at sustaining assent since they at once impress the intellect and ll the fantasy (I.xxviii, OFB XI, p. 75). Bacon re-uses thus
the elements of the Stoic account of the morally relevant workings of the
mind in the context of his natural philosophical epistemology.
The solution to the problem of error lay for the Stoics in a cultivation of
the soul which combined the right use of the phantasiai with the correct
use of assenta regimen which would be able to build a sound mind. The
process of regulating and training the minds operations is consequently
twofold: it involves, on the one hand, a work on the impressions themselves in the attempt to exchange the false with the true ones (for instance,
when assailed by the impression involved in lust, one should evoke the
image of Socrates being indifferent to the beauty of Alcibiades) (Discourses
II.18, in Epictetus 2004, p. 103), and, on the other hand, a work of becoming accustomed to withholding assent until impressions are claried.
The remedy for the preoccupation of the mind offered by Bacons methodological prescriptions also involves a similarly double work of acquiring
20. E.g., Plutarch, On Stoic Self-Contradictions: those who grant assent in a faulty manner
are precipitate if they yield to unclear impressions, deceived if they yield to false ones, and
opining if they yield to ones which are incognitive quite generally (in Long and Sedley
1987, p. 255). Assent also features in early modern works on the soul that are closer to
the scholastic model; see, e.g., the discussion of the acts of the intellectus in Melanchthon
(1569), where, signicantly, he refers to the Stoics in his account of assent and of the normae
certitudinis. But there is no concern there with the perturbations of assent, of a kind that is
present in other authors more openly indebted to Stoic thought, such as Vives (1543,
pp. 10910), who discusses the precipitate rashness of the erroneous iudicium, or La
Primaudaye (1591, pp. 18384), who draws a distinction between rme and steadfast
and weake and unstayed consentall of which is standard Stoic vocabulary.

Perspectives on Science

197

true images and of disciplining assent. First, the methods of learned experience, of the variation of experiment, and of the inception of induction by
prerogative instances are meant to help the mind escape the ties of
afrmative, familiar, authoritative, or beloved notions or doctrines and to
teach it to discover (and see) the unfamiliar and unexpected (the negative, heterogeneous, or unexpected instances). Second, Bacon also requires
his true inquirers to learn how to practice a legitimate form of the suspension of assentone that does not deny the capacity to know (and thus is
not an acatalepsia) but one whose role is to withhold the precipitate movement of assent and to allow further examination (and is thus a fruitful
manner of suspension of judgment, which should be called eucatalepsia)
(Novum organum I.cxxvi, OFB XI, p. 189).
Recipes for the Imagination

In the previous sections, we have identied two major roles of the imagination in the Baconian explanation of the mechanism of the idolic mind,
captured by the images of the ight and the striking and lling of the
imagination. There is also a physiological aspect to these processes that
trouble the well-being of the natural inquirer: the ight, striking, and
lling of the imagination correlate with erratic movements of the spirits.
Bacons account of the league between mind and body presumes a signicant interaction between them, consisting of mutuall Intelligence, and
mutuall Ofces (Advancement of Learning II, OFB IV, p. 94). The twofold
inuence of the body on the mind and of the mind on the body, he writes,
is a fact known to any physician (De augmentis scientiarum IV, SEH IV,
p. 378).21 Traditionally, the bridge between body and mind was constituted by the imagination and the spirits. Different physiological processes
would result in different states of the imagination and this could have
signicantpositive or negativeepistemic consequences. A real medicina mentis would therefore have to take into account bodily states in the
regimen for regulating the imagination and, through the imagination, the
mind in general.
Bacon stressed the role of the body in the medicina mentis where he
treated explicitly of morals, but by extension, his conclusions also hold for
epistemology.22 He argues: the rst Article of this knowledge is to set
21. Plato and Aristotle argued that a physician should cure both body and soul. Galen
took a stronger position in claiming that the soul follows the temperament of the body. Although Aristotle denied that the understanding depended on the bodily instrument, Vives
(1543, Lib.2, Cap. 6), Huarte (1594, pp. 7071), and Bacon took Galens side. Yet the exact nature of the interrelations between material and mental motions remains elusive in
Bacon.
22. Vives (1543) argued that changing ones physiology by adopting a certain diet and

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Idols of the Imagination

downe Sound and true distributions and descriptions of the seueral characters and tempers of mens Natures and dispositions . . . Of much like kinde
are those impressions of Nature, which are imposed vpon the Mind by the
Sex, by the Age, by the Region, by health, and sicknesse, by beauty and deformity
(OFB IV, pp. 14748). Different complexions, tempers, and circumstances will affect the imagination and inuence moral but also cognitive
processes. Taking into account the diversity of bodily complexions is crucial, as the knowledg of the diuersitye of groundes and Mouldes doth to
Agriculture, and the knowledge of the diuersity of Complexions and Constitutions doth to the Phisition (OFB IV, p. 149). The georgics or medicine of the mind presupposed thus not only an analogy between the cures
of the mind and the cures of the body. It also involved a physiological cure
aimed at improving the mind. Unfortunately, Bacon complained, there
was almost no trustworthy knowledge available on this subject and the
physicians abstract approach to medicine was inadequate for the purpose.
They should aim to search for specic cures for particular diseases in given
circumstances, not for universal cures or general opinions (Advancement of
Learning II, OFB IV, p. 149; De augmentis scientiarum IV, SEH IV, p. 388).
While medical knowledge about the particularities of the body was already so scant, knowledge about the interaction between body and mind
was even more inadequate and dispersed and usually mingled with religion and superstition (De augmentis scientiarum IV, SEH IV, pp. 377,
368).23
Bacon had a strong interest in medical practices and theories (Medical
Remains, SEH III, p. 827), even though he was critical of contemporary
physicians.24 His own medical program was focused on the prolongation of
life, which he considered the principal and most noble part of medicine
(De augmentis scientiarum IV, SEH IV, pp. 383, 390). He described numerlife-style was a way to control ones passions and thus a means to rectifying ones moral life.
Bacon applied this moral philosophical idea to the epistemic realm, just as he appropriated
the Stoic moral theory of assent for epistemic concerns (see above note 20 for a reference to
Vives in the latter sense).
23. Bacon argues that while physicians sometimes prescribe reasonable cures to heal
mental diseases and help the wit and mind, the diets of the Pythagoreans and other sects
go beyond all reasonable measure.
24. Bacon also played an important role in creating a Royal charter granting apothecaries independence from the dominance of the powerful Grocers Company. Diverse drafts of
the charter were made and criticized between 1614 and 1617. In the course of drafting this
new legislation, he was in close contact with the kings physicians, Sir Theodore Turquet
de Mayerne and Dr Henry Atkins, and many apothecaries. It was clear that Bacon was critical of the physicians, and it was believed that he deliberately frustrated the designs of the
College of Physicians to make the apothecaries totally subservient to it (Wall et al. 1963, I,
p. 20).

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199

ous diets and regimens, based on properties of natural particulars, and

their effect on the body and the spirits.25 He used several sources of the
materia medica, from natural histories, traditional herbals, and local pharmacopoeia to the practical experience of empirics, apothecaries, and alchemists, adding to this his personal experience and experiments. There is no
systematic account of the medicines and diet that could improve the mind
in his works, but scattered throughout them we can nd remarks about
the close intertwinement of corporeal and cognitive processes and various
notes on the substances that positively or negatively affected the spirits
and the imagination.
In Bacons system of thought, every object comprises spirits and it is
these spirits that we take in by eating, smelling, or through the pores of
our skin and that most forcefully affect the spirits of the mind. Indeed,
corporeal vapors ascend to the brain and affect dreams and imaginations.
Such explanations rely on Bacons pneumatic matter theory and cosmology, which bears a visible Stoic and Neo-Stoic mark (partly mediated by
Galen, Telesio, chemical philosophers, and others). In contrast to contemporary authors also interested in the impact of physiological processes on
the mind, such as Juan Huarte and Robert Burton, Bacon largely neglects
traditional qualities and humoral theory and is almost exclusively interested in the various movements of the spirits.26 From Bacons medical
writings we learn that certain substances negatively affect the imagination. Wine, certain ointments, opiates, and airs rise to the imagination
and cause serious disorders.27 Other substances have a positive effect on the
mind; thus, the heart of an ape applied to the neck or head, helpeth the
wit; and is good for the falling sickness: the ape also is a witty beast, and
hath a dry brain; which may be some cause of attenuation of vapours in the
head. Yet it is said to move dreams also (Sylva Sylvarum X, SEH II,
p. 665). The effect of diet and natural remedies can be so strong that the
diet of the mother has a marked effect on the intelligence of the unborn
child. For instance, if the mother eats too many quinces or corianderseeds, the vapors will be repressed and they will not ascend to the brain of
the child. This will make the child ingenious. But if she eats onions or
25. Note, however, that Bacon admitted that his own theories were not always derived
from experiment. See Historia vitae et mortis, OFB XII, pp. 24143.
26. See Huarte 1594, esp. pp. 5168; Burton 1621. On Bacons matter theory, see, e.g.,
Rees 1977; Rees 1996. For a study of the relationship between Bacons matter theory and
his account of the human minds, see Giglioni 2010b. On Stoic natural philosophy, see
Osler 1991. On the reception of ancient spirit theories, see Verbeke 1945.
27. See for instance his comments on witchcraft, attributed to an effect of certain opiate
ointments on the imagination (Sylva Sylvarum X, SEH II, pp. 642, 664). He reported that
witches eat human esh to aid their imagination with high and foul vapours (I and IX,
SEH II, pp. 348, 626).

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Idols of the Imagination

beans, if she drinks too much wine or takes tobacco, these substances will
produce vapors that will invade the head of the child and it will be born a
lunatic (p. 665). Certain perfumes dry and strengthen the brain, and rosemary moistens and refreshes the spirits. Rose-water and vinegar gather together the spirits, while tobacco comforts the spirits by opening and condensing them (SEH II, pp. 64849). In sum, there are natural substances
able both to strengthen and to weaken the mind.
The cures and regimens Bacon describes are not necessarily good for a
long life, since there are some things which help the alacrity of the spirits, and the strength and vigour of the bodily functions but yet diminish
life expectancy (Historia vitae et mortis, OFB XII, p. 243). In general, however, remedies that promote a longer life will also be benecial for the
mind, because they are based on the moderation of the extreme movements of the spirits. These remedies might therefore counter extremes in
the ying, striking, and tying up of the spirits and the imagination, which
constitutes the physiological counterpart of the mental activities investigated in the previous sections. In their very nature, spirits are agitated,
they try to replicate themselves, and they prey upon the body. The ight
of the imagination (the agitated spirits), the striking of the imagination
(the impressionability of spirits), or the tying up of the imagination (an
impression sticks because the spirits keep replicating it) are therefore intrinsic to the nature of the human mind, although some people might be
more disposed to some of these effects than others.
Bacon explains how the movements of the spirits can be moderated by
medical recipes. It is important not to excite and iname the spirits by
passions, wine, spicy food, or specic ingredients such as savory and marjoram (Historia vitae et mortis, OFB XII, p. 259). Instead, one should invigorate, condense, and strengthen the spirits. This can be done in several
ways, and some are more benecial than others, depending on the circumstances. For instance, the spirits are condensed in two ways by soporics
or sleeping draughts: either by sedating their motion or by putting them
to ight. For by their friendly and gently cooling vapours, violets, dried
roses, petals, lettuce, and suchlike salutary and benign medicines encourage the spirits to concentrate, and they restrain their wild and restless motion . . . But opiates and kindred substances plainly put the spirits to
ight by their malign and unfriendly quality . . . and since the spirits
withdraw themselves but cannot escape into some other part, they consequently come together, and become condensed and sometimes altogether
extinguished and stied; though again if you take these same opiates in
moderation they strengthen the spirits and make them more robust by
secondary accident . . . and curb their useless and inammatory motions
(Novum organum II.l, OFB XI, pp. 42729).

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201

Small quantities of soporic medicine can help to quiet overeager spirits but too much of them will lead to fantastic dreams. Bacon compares
the effects of soporic drugs with the imaginative sciences such as natural magic, alchemy, and astrology, which are based on high and vaporous
imaginations instead of a laborious and sober inquiry of truth and which
produce only pleasing dreams (Advancement of Learning II, OFB IV, 27,
pp. 8990; Filum labyrinthi, SEH III, p. 503; De augmentis scientiarum,
SEH IV, p. 367). While higher doses of opiates agitate the spirits extremely, small doses are actually benecial for the imagination. Coffee, for
instance, provides no end of courage and mental energy. All the same,
taken in large doses it over-stimulates and troubles the mind, whence it is
obvious that it is similar in nature to opiates (Historia vitae et mortis, OFB
XII, p. 249). The spirits can be condensed by small doses of opiate, because it puts them to ight and drives them to the centre, which will increase concentration and clarity of thought. Too strong doses will deregulate the mind and make it go astray or they may even choke the mind.
What is good for the prolongation of life does not entirely coincide
with the good of the mind, however. Bacon explains that imaginative philosophies, such as those of the Platonists and the rhetoricians, are characterized by a light movement of the spirits and are conducive to a long life.
In contrast, narrow-minded philosophies dealing with troublesome subtleties, dogmatism, or the philosophy of the scholastics that is given to
laying down the law, and reducing or twisting single instances to demands of general principles will shorten life (OFB XII, pp. 233, 267).
Bacon accuses all these philosophers of indolence, which makes them fall
prey to the idols of the mind. Their exertions are nothing compared to the
vexations and laborious inquiry of the true Baconian philosopher.28 One
would therefore expect the diet of a Baconian philosopher to be adapted to
this exacting lifestyle, with stronger and more vigorous alimentation and
recipes. An increase of spirits, however, would usually mean that they prey
more on the body and shorten life. One could aim at nding ingredients
that would be favorable both to the prolongation of life and the lucidity of
mind. Bacons own diet consisted of a variety of ingredients with plenty of
spirits, such as his broth with niter (Medical Remains, SEH III, p. 832).29
Bacon considered niter (known as the food of life by contemporary alchemists) as particularly benecial, because nitre alone seethes with spirit
and is cold. It replenishes the spirits without overheating the imagina28. Deep thought condenses the spirit, however.
29. Bacon concocted his own recipes and followed a strict diet. To take every morning
the fume of lign-aloes, rosemary and bays dried, which I use; but once in a week to add a
little tobacco, without otherwise taking it in a pipe, was the sixth rule for his own diet
(Medical Remains, SEH III, pp. 83236).

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tion, while at the same time it composes and restrains them, which tends
to longevity (Historia vitae et mortis, OFB XII, p. 255).
Bacon was interested in human nature generally, but even more so in
variation and particulars, hence the need for a natural history of human
embodied minds. In his exploration of the different kinds of idols and errors of the mind, he gave a general account of the various functions of the
imagination and its relations with wit, understanding, and the mind in
general. But he also made it clear that the several characters and tempers
of mens natures and dispositions rest on very different physiologies of
the spirits and the imagination and thus that there are strong variations in
the remedies that may help to regulate them. These two lines of investigation, the general and the particular, are facets of a truly integrated medicine of the mind, with both epistemic and physiological cures.
Conclusion

Bacons approach to the errors and the medicining of the mind integrates moral, physiological, and epistemic perspectives. By focusing on
Bacons epistemology and his account of the idols of the mind, we have established the importance of the imagination for diagnosing and curing the
mind. The Baconian imagination connects different branches of knowledge, including epistemology, moral philosophy, physiology, and the
league between body and soul. These discourses are integrated to a further
extent when Bacon moralises epistemology and physiology by attributing
desires and appetites to the mind and spirits. The mind itself wants to y
off and the appetites of the spirits generate a continuous agitation. As a result, a reformed natural philosophy will need to discipline and cure both
body and mind.
Although Bacons work is particularly syncretic, we argue for a marked
Neo-Stoic inuence in his philosophy of man. This is particularly pertinent in his dynamic account of the mind in general and of the imagination
in particular. In this paper, we have singled out two fundamental causes of
the errors of the mind in analysing, on the one hand, the ight of the
imagination away from the particulars of experience, and on the other
hand, the lling of the imagination under the spell of authoritative and familiar notions and doctrines. These processes are correlated with Bacons
matter theory and his elaborate physiology of spirits which are, again, indebted to the Stoic tradition. The different movements of subtle spirits lie
at the basis of Bacons physical and cosmological theorizing, which is also
reected in his physiology and epistemology.
The imagination is the traditional bridge between mind and body. Focusing on the imagination in Bacons work makes it clear that his medicina
mentis involves an integrated cure with epistemic as well as physiological

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203

aspects. On the one hand, Bacons method is aimed, rst, at calming the
agitation of the spirits and mind by hanging leaden weights on the
imagination, and second, at avoiding the preoccupation of the mind and
the innite self-replication of the spirits in familiar notions by providing
exible and varying methods of experimentation. On the other hand, Bacon explores the effects of natural particulars on the spirits and imagination in his natural histories and medical works. The good life has thus
physiological, moral, as well as epistemic components. Unfortunately, it is
not always possible to align all these aspects and the methods and recipes
conducive to a strong and healthy mind are not necessarily benecial to a
healthy or long life. As a result, Bacons natural philosopher will need a
strong calling to keep his rectitude of mind, being prepared for uneasy
work, disciplined behavior, and sometimes even endangering his health or
life; a dangerous profession thatin the portrayal of popular tradition
was to be fatal to Bacon himself.
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