Thomas Hobbes and Francis Bacon
Bacon’s writings may have been collaborative to a considerable extent. The article “Who Wrote Bacon? Assessing the Respective Roles of Francis Bacon and His Secretaries in the Production of His English Works” applies modern stylometric (wordprint) analysis to a long-standing puzzle in Bacon scholarship: how Bacon could have produced such a vast, stylistically inconsistent body of work while maintaining an exceptionally demanding political career. Using two independent statistical methods, the authors compare Bacon’s handwritten letters (autographs) with his published English works and with texts by contemporaries, including Thomas Hobbes. The central finding is stark: Bacon’s autographic writings display a consistent, identifiable wordprint, but most of the works published under his name do not match it.
The authors argue that the most economical explanation for this discrepancy is Bacon’s extensive reliance on secretaries and collaborators. While Bacon clearly possessed a stable personal writing style, detectable in his handwritten letters, that style is largely absent from his published corpus. Statistical comparisons show that over half of Bacon’s published English works differ so strongly from his autograph wordprint that they are unlikely to have been written solely by him. Only one major published work—the Apology Concerning the Earl of Essex—consistently matches Bacon’s autograph style, suggesting it was composed directly by Bacon during a moment of personal and political crisis.
The study further explores the possibility that Thomas Hobbes, who served intermittently as Bacon’s secretary, may have contributed substantially to certain texts, particularly portions of New Atlantis and some historical writings. While the authors stress that stylometric evidence cannot conclusively prove authorship in cases of collaboration, several Bacon texts cluster closely with Hobbes’s known wordprint. This overlap is strongest during periods when Hobbes is historically documented as having access to Bacon, lending circumstantial support to the hypothesis of significant Hobbesian involvement, especially in early and middle sections of New Atlantis.
Importantly, the authors reject sensational conclusions. They do not argue that Bacon lacked originality or that his philosophical ideas were authored by others. Instead, they propose a model of distributed authorship, common in early modern political and intellectual life, in which Bacon functioned as an originator, director, and editor of ideas that were often drafted, phrased, or expanded by secretaries. Historical evidence, ranging from household records to John Aubrey’s accounts of Bacon dictating ideas during walks, strongly supports this picture of collaborative production.
The article concludes that recognizing Bacon’s reliance on secretarial assistance resolves several long-standing anomalies: contradictions in style, shifts in tone, and the sheer volume of output. Rather than undermining Bacon’s significance, this perspective reframes him as an intellectual architect whose ideas were realized through a collective process. The authors suggest that future scholarship should focus less on defending single authorship and more on reconstructing the institutional and collaborative conditions under which Bacon’s thought was produced.
Alan Stewart, co-chair of the Oxford Francis Bacon and co-author of the biography Hostage to Fortune, describes a scenario whereby
Surviving autograph drafts by Bacon—that is, tracts written in his own handwriting—are scant indeed, and most of them are notes, occurring in commonplace books and notebooks . . . the norm is a draft in the hand of one of Bacon’s secretaries or amanuenses, with Bacon’s autograph comments, often quite extensive emendations . . . That these writings range in date from 1603 to 1621 suggests that Bacon’s preferred form of writing may always have been collaborative.[1]
[1] Stewart 2009.
Philosophical Divergence Between Hobbes and Bacon
Thomas Hobbes as Francis Bacon’s amanuensis (1618–1621)
Thomas Hobbes entered the service of Sir Francis Bacon in the late 1610s, acting as Bacon’s scribe and secretary during Bacon’s final years in public life. Scholarly consensus places Hobbes’s assistance roughly between 1618 and 1621, continuing until Bacon’s death in 1626. Bacon’s fall from political power in 1621 (his impeachment for corruption) marked the beginning of an intensive period of writing, and it was during this period that Hobbes worked closely with him. Hobbes was introduced to Bacon through his position as tutor and companion in the Cavendish household, which gave him access to Bacon’s circle. By around 1620, Hobbes was indeed serving “for some time as a secretary to Francis Bacon,” assisting the former Lord Chancellor with literary and scholarly tasks.
Hobbes’s duties as Bacon’s amanuensis were varied but primarily intellectual in nature. Contemporary accounts (notably by John Aubrey) describe Hobbes attending Bacon on walks in the gardens of Gorhambury, ink and paper at the ready, to take dictation whenever a notion struck Bacon. Bacon himself remarked that “he better liked Mr. Hobbes’s taking his thoughts, than any of the others” because Hobbes understood what he wrote, whereas other secretaries often failed to grasp Bacon’s meaning. In practical terms, Hobbes’s role included:
Transcribing and editing Bacon’s words—writing down Bacon’s dictated thoughts and organizing manuscripts for clarity.
Latin translating—putting Bacon’s works (originally in English) into polished Latin for publication. Bacon valued Hobbes’s strong classical education and Latin skills.
Preparing texts for press—helping to ready Bacon’s manuscripts for publication in Bacon’s ambitious late-life project, the Instauratio Magna (“Great Instauration”).
Hobbes’s service to Bacon is well-documented in both historical and biographical sources. For example, Bacon’s contemporary biographers note that in translating his works into Latin, Bacon “was assisted by…his two friends, Ben Jonson, the poet, and Hobbes, the philosopher.” In short, the young Hobbes was not a mere copy-clerk, but a trusted intellectual assistant who could follow Bacon’s line of thought and render it accurately in elegant Latin.
Works associated with Hobbes’s assistance
Several of Bacon’s works from 1620–1623 bear the hallmark of Hobbes’s assistance, especially those Bacon issued in Latin as part of his grand philosophical program. Hobbes’s most concrete contributions were in translating Bacon’s prose into Latin. According to Aubrey, Hobbes “assisted his lordship in translating several of his Essays into Latin,” recalling in particular Bacon’s essay “Of the Greatness of Cities,” among others. Bacon’s final 1625 edition of the Essays was indeed rendered into Latin (published as Sermones Fideles in 1638) by a team of Bacon’s helpers – Hobbes included. Bacon’s chaplain William Rawley later confirmed that diverse hands (Dr. Hacket, Ben Jonson, “and some others”) collaborated on the Latin translation of Bacon’s essays. It is very likely that Hobbes was one of those unnamed “others,” given Aubrey’s testimony and Bacon’s own praise of Hobbes’s notes.
Beyond the Essays, Hobbes’s period with Bacon coincided with Bacon’s work on natural histories and philosophical treatises that were part of his Instauratio Magna project. During 1621-23, Bacon composed and published works like Historia Ventorum (History of the Winds, 1622) and Historia Vitae et Mortis (History of Life and Death, 1623)—scientific treatises written in Latin—as well as the expanded Latin version of The Advancement of Learning (De Augmentis Scientiarum, 1623). While direct attributions are scarce, Bacon at this time “translated [his writings] into Latin, from the mistaken notion that in that language alone could they be rescued from oblivion,” and he relied on Hobbes and others for that translation work. Modern historians infer that Hobbes likely assisted with these Latin texts, given his known role and Bacon’s acknowledgement of Hobbes’s help in Latinizing his works. In sum, Hobbes’s fingerprints are on Bacon’s late publications – from practical matters like taking Bacon’s dictation for experimental histories, to literary tasks like rendering Bacon’s English prose into authoritative Latin for scholarly readership.
It’s important to note, however, that Hobbes did not originate Bacon’s ideas. His contributions were as a skilled translator-editor rather than a co-author. Bacon’s personal physician and biographer Rawley and later scholars do not suggest that Hobbes influenced the substance of Bacon’s philosophy, only that he helped articulate Bacon’s existing ideas. For instance, Hobbes assisted Bacon with “setting down his present notions” in writing, but there is no evidence Hobbes inserted his own philosophical views into Bacon’s works. Hobbes himself, in later years, spoke respectfully of Bacon’s intellect and praised Bacon as “the wisest of Britons,” but he did not claim any part of Bacon’s philosophical inventions. Thus, the nature of their collaboration was professional and asymmetrical: Bacon was the master conceiving the ideas, and Hobbes the able lieutenant helping to record and polish them.
Scholarly Perspectives on the Bacon–Hobbes Relationship
Historians and Hobbes scholars generally agree that Hobbes’s stint as Bacon’s amanuensis was formative for Hobbes yet limited in influence on Bacon. Hobbes was about 30 years old at the time, an “intellectually capable assistant whose classical training mattered” to Bacon’s literary output. Bacon clearly valued Hobbes’s acumen—as noted, Bacon “loved to converse with him” during writing sessions and trusted Hobbes’s understanding (a trust he did not extend to all his servants). This suggests that Hobbes was more than a mere stenographer: he could follow Bacon’s complex trains of thought in natural philosophy, law, and history, making him an unusually effective secretary. One biographical source even calls Hobbes Bacon’s “favorite secretary” who took dictation better than anyone else.
Despite this intellectual rapport, scholars caution not to overstate Bacon’s influence on Hobbes (or vice versa). The relationship was mentor–assistant, not a meeting of equal minds formulating ideas together. Bacon was 25 years Hobbes’s senior and already a towering figure (a former Lord Chancellor and famed philosopher), whereas Hobbes in 1620 had yet to publish anything of note. Thus, Hobbes did not shape Bacon’s philosophical doctrines – there is no indication that Bacon modified his method or content due to Hobbes. Instead, Hobbes learned from Bacon. The scholar J.G.A. Pocock describes Hobbes at this stage as absorbing Bacon’s secular, anti-Aristotelian approach to knowledge, but still far from developing his own system. Quentin Skinner and others likewise emphasize that Hobbes emerged from Bacon’s shadow with his admiration for Bacon’s eloquence and breadth, but Hobbes’s own philosophy would take a very different direction.
In fact, Hobbes’s later writings show as much reaction against Bacon as inspiration. Bacon is celebrated as the father of modern empiricism and the inductive scientific method—summed up in the slogan “knowledge is power” (scientia potestas est)—whereas Hobbes became known for a far more deductive approach to science and politics. Scholars often contrast the two: Bacon championed open-ended experimentation and collection of facts, while Hobbes sought geometric certainty from first principles. This divergence was so pronounced that intellectual historians speak of Bacon and Hobbes representing two distinct forks in early modern thought rather than a single lineage. As one commentary puts it, Bacon’s zeal for observational experiment “was entirely alien to the essentially deductive and systematic spirit of the Hobbesian philosophy.” Hobbes rarely even used the term “induction” in his works; and when he did, it was usually to dismiss it as an invalid method in fields like mathematics. In Hobbes’s De Corpore and other scientific writings, he explicitly favors resolving phenomena into fundamental definitions and reasoning a priori—a methodology quite remote from Bacon’s inductive tables of instances.
A philosophical fork in the road: From Bacon’s empiricism to Hobbes’s rationalism
The brief Bacon–Hobbes connection is historically intriguing because it foreshadows a split in modern philosophy. In the early 1620s, the older Bacon and the young Hobbes shared a common scene: imagine Bacon dictating insights about nature and history, and Hobbes faithfully recording them under an autumn oak at Gorhambury. In those moments, Hobbes was immersed in Bacon’s grand vision to reform knowledge—the rejection of scholastic Aristotelianism, his call for methodical observation and experimentation, and his project of compiling natural histories as the foundation for scientific progress. This exposure gave Hobbes a direct education in the post-Aristotelian, empiricist mindset that Bacon was pioneering. It is reasonable to think Hobbes gained an appreciation for clear prose, practical inquiry, and secular analysis from his time with Bacon.
Yet, Hobbes ultimately did not become Bacon’s intellectual disciple. Over the next two decades, Hobbes’s philosophy took a dramatically different turn. A key moment came around 1629–1630, when Hobbes (now independent from Bacon and the Cavendish household) discovered the rigor of Euclidean geometry. According to Aubrey, Hobbes was “forty years old before he looked on geometry” – he happened upon Euclid’s 47th Proposition and was dazzled by its clear demonstration, exclaiming “By G—, this is impossible!” until he traced the proof and found himself convinced. This encounter ignited Hobbes’s lifelong passion for deductive reasoning. He “fell in love with geometry,” and thereafter conceived that true knowledge must be built like geometry – starting from definitions and axioms, proceeding by logical steps to irrefutable conclusions.
In adopting a geometric method, Hobbes implicitly broke from Bacon’s inductive method. Bacon had argued that science should progress by careful induction from particular observations to general axioms (a bottom-up approach), warning that premature system-building leads to error. Hobbes, however, grew convinced that one must start top-down from first principles (self-evident definitions of motion, space, etc.) and reason out the consequences – an approach he applied in his political philosophy as well, beginning Leviathan with definitions of human motions and appetites and deducing the need for an absolute sovereign. Hobbes even disdained many experimental practices of the early scientists; for example, during the rise of the Royal Society, he famously criticized Robert Boyle’s air-pump experiments, favoring theoretical arguments over empirical proof. In short, Hobbes turned away from Bacon’s experimental inductivism and toward a rationalist, quasi-mathematical science of politics and nature.
This divergence has been noted by many commentators as a “fork in early modern philosophy”. Bacon and Hobbes, despite their brief collaboration, ended up founding two separate legacies: Bacon the lineage of British empiricism and experimental science, and Hobbes a lineage of systematic political theory and mechanistic philosophy. There was no direct “school” of Bacon that Hobbes carried on; rather, Hobbes took some of Bacon’s secular and scientific spirit but steered it into a very different methodology. The contrast can be symbolized by two mottoes: Bacon’s oft-attributed “Knowledge itself is power,” versus Hobbes’s striking claim in Leviathan that “Auctoritas, non veritas, facit legem” – “Authority, not truth, makes the law.” Bacon sought truth from nature to empower mankind, whereas Hobbes believed that in civil society, truth itself must bow to the requirements of power and authority for the sake of peace.
It is here that one is reminded of a classic idea from Plato: the sophist Thrasymachus in The Republic argues that “justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger,” essentially claiming that might makes right. Hobbes’s mature philosophy echoes this cynical realism in important ways. Having lived through the chaos of the English Civil War, Hobbes concluded that objective truth or private conscience must not undermine sovereign authority—for truth, in the political realm, is whatever the sovereign power declares it to be, in order to maintain order. His “authority, not truth, makes law” dictum captures a Thrasymachus-like sentiment: that social order and power define accepted truth, rather than truth existing independently to check power. This marks a profound shift from Bacon’s orientation (where the pursuit of truth through science was paramount and would empower humanity) to Hobbes’s orientation (where securing power and peace is paramount, and truth becomes a tool of that security).
In summary, the period 1618–1621 when Hobbes served Francis Bacon was a significant early chapter in Hobbes’s life, giving him firsthand exposure to Bacon’s revolutionary ideas and writing process. Hobbes proved an able amanuensis—taking dictation, translating Bacon’s essays into Latin, and helping to usher Bacon’s late works into print. Scholars agree Hobbes gained much from Bacon’s association, but they also note that Hobbes was not a co-creator of Bacon’s philosophy, merely a highly competent helper. The intellectual significance of their connection lies in what came after: Hobbes assimilated Bacon’s rejection of old scholasticism but rejected Bacon’s inductive method, choosing a different path toward truth based on rational deduction and authoritarian conclusions. This fork-in-the-road meant that, within a few decades, Bacon’s and Hobbes’s legacies would run on parallel tracks of modern thought rather than a single line. Both men, in their own ways, contributed to the birth of modern philosophy – Bacon as a progenitor of empirical science, and Hobbes as a founder of social contract theory and mechanistic materialism. Their brief collaboration in the gardens of Gorhambury thus stands as a fascinating historical vignette: an older visionary and a younger skeptic working together, just before their philosophical roads diverged.
References
Aubrey, John. Brief Lives – Life of Thomas Hobbes (written c.1680; ed. A. Clark). Aubrey recounts Bacon’s high regard for Hobbes’s note-taking and Hobbes’s help translating Bacon’s Essays into Latin.
Sommerville, J. P. (1992). Thomas Hobbes: Political Ideas in Historical Context. Macmillan. [As cited in Wikipedia]. (Confirms Hobbes’s service as Bacon’s amanuensis around 1620 and that Hobbes did not turn to original philosophy until later.)
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – Thomas Hobbes (Biography). Stanford University (substantive revision 2025). Notes that “around 1620, Hobbes worked for some time as a secretary to Francis Bacon”.
Linda Hall Library – Scientist of the Day: Thomas Hobbes (Apr 5, 2018) by W. B. Ashworth. Highlights that Hobbes, “in his youth, served as secretary for Francis Bacon after Bacon’s disgrace, helping with the Instauratio Magna”.
Rawley, William (Bacon’s secretary). “Preface to Sermones Fideles” (1638). In Bacon’s Essays (Gutenberg ed.). Mentions that the Latin translation of Bacon’s Essays was done by Dr. Hacket, Ben Jonson, “and others” – modern editors note Hobbes as one of those hands.
Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan (1651). Latin edition (1668), ch. 26. Contains Hobbes’s famous dictum “Auctoritas, non veritas, facit legem” (“Authority, not truth, makes law”), reflecting his view that sovereign power, not abstract truth, defines the laws of society.
Plato, Republic (c. 4th century BCE), Book I. Thrasymachus’ doctrine that “justice is nothing but the advantage of the stronger” – a classical antecedent to the idea that power defines right*.