Step into the mind of the man who taught the world to think. In these pages, Francis Bacon—the English philosopher, jurist, and statesman who helped lay the foundations of modern science—turns his penetrating gaze on human nature itself. His Essays, gathered and polished across nearly three decades, offer cool, aphoristic wisdom on truth, death, love, friendship, ambition, gardens, and the art of getting on in the world; his Wisdom of the Ancients unlocks the classical myths as coded meditations on nature and power. This edition presents the COMPLETE, UNABRIDGED original text, accompanied by a new introduction that sets Bacon's life and ideas in context, and reader's notes illuminating the allusions and archaic turns of phrase. Whether you come for famous lines such as 'Reading maketh a full man' or for the pleasure of a great mind thinking aloud, you will find here a companion for a lifetime. Part of The Founding Texts Library.