Bacon’s Apples: A Case Study in Baconian Experimentation

Abstract

This paper investigates a specific case of Baconian experimentation, that is, a series of controlled experimental trials he undertook to study the processes of maturation and putrefaction of apples when they were placed under very different circumstances and conditions. The results of these trials were repeatedly used by Francis Bacon in his writings to illustrate the motions of spirits enclosed in matter. In this paper, I reconstruct some of Bacon's experiments with apples from his recurrent references, as found in the Historia vitae et mortis, De vijs mortis, Novum organum and Sylva Sylvarum. I argue that they shed important light on three problematic aspects in Baconian scholarship. Firstly, they offer a paradigmatic situation in which we can explore Bacon's creative and critical handling of sources. Secondly, they show Bacon at work as an experimenter who carefully and accurately observed, recorded and imagined interesting experimental setups and variations of experimental parameters, while displaying an interest in experimental methodology and the limits of experimental procedure. Finally, Bacon's apples are very good examples of the multiple uses and functions experiments play in his natural and experimental histories.