It is the story of a man who was endowed with one of the most unusual combinations of magnificent gifts ever bestowed on a human intellect. Francis Bacon's life is one that is difficult to write or read.

It was the life of a man whose entire purpose in life and every day's work was to do great things to enlighten and elevate his race, to enrich it with new powers, to lay up in store for future generations a source of blessings that would never fail or dry up; it was the life of a man who had lofty ideas about the ends and methods of law and government, and with whom the general and public good writ large.