BISHOP GEORGE BERKELY AND EMPIRICISM

In my earlier note I have written about the first of the troika of British Empiricism John Locke. Next comes a man who perplexes an ordinary mind by a complex theory that defies imagination. When I read the philosophy of George Berkely for the first time, it did not make any sense to me. Only after re and re reading it did it make any sense. When I understood it I enjoyed it. I tried to make this write up simple with the help of a wonderful Telugu book on philosophy I have. It may still be a bit confusing but I could not make it any simpler.

BISHOP GEORGE BERKELEY.

Earth, sky, stars, sun, moon, nature, men and animals all are part of the physical world. Materialism says only the physical world is real and nothing else. As opposed to this Empiricism says that knowledge only comes from the senses and experiences.

Berkeley was born in the year 1685 (about 50 years after Locke) in Ireland. He is a scholastic philosopher who vowed to tear apart materialism and prove the existence of God.

Berkeley says that there is no physical world, there is no matter and all that exists is in our mental states alone. Our world, our mind and its mental states alone are real. 

This reminds us of the Mayawada of our own Sankaracharya. Like the Mayawada of Sankara, it is difficult to refute but also equally difficult to accept.

Descartes says, I think therefore I am. Berkeley says” To be is to be perceived”. As per this a thing has an existence when it is perceived by someone and if it there is no one to perceive a thing, then it has no existence.

Berkeley was born in Ireland in the year 1685 and studied at Trinity College. He learnt Greek, Latin, Maths and Philosophy. He worked at Trinity College for some time after completing his education.

He had a brilliant mind and he published “ An Essay towards new theory of vision” in his 24th year itself. Then in his 25th year has written a treatise explaining his philosophy named “ Treatise concerning the principles of Human Understanding”. 3 years later at the age of 28 he wrote another book to explain his theories in the treatise. So by the age of 28 itself he has written the books that have brought him name in the world of Philosophy.

The writer Jonathan Swift was his close friend. One of Swift’s lovers had a fight with Swift and willed Berkeley with half her property before she died. So Berkley became wealthy and toured Italy.

Berkeley was an idealist. He felt that contemporary society was becoming corrupt and it is impossible to correct it. He felt it is better to pick up a tribal community and educate it to be idealistic. With this in mind he proposed to establish a Jesuit college in Bermuda. There he proposed to train Christian missionaries and make them train American Indians into an ideal society.

Despite obtaining the Kings approval for this venture it did not take off because the Parliament refused the 20,000 pounds assistance promised. Berkley later became the Bishop of a place called Cloin.

He felt that contemporary society is becoming corrupt and ethics and faith are on the decline on account of the advancement in science which led people to doubt everything. He felt it is his life’s aim to bring back society to the age of faith. He has built his philosophy with this aim in mind.

The philosophy of Locke and his empiricism have influenced Berkeley strongly. Berkeley is also an empiricist. However, he felt that the empiricism of Locke leads people to materialism, skepticism and thence to Atheism.

He felt that if one believes that the material world exists independently and it automatically acts as per certain rules, then what is the necessity of God for man? That is wrong, the world exists only because God exists and without God nothing is. Berkeley used all his intellect towards proving this.

Locke said that all the knowledge we acquire comes through sensory perception and reasoning. The reason for sensory perception is the material things in the external world. Although we perceive the external things through our senses, there is no guarantee that what we perceive is the actual thing that exists. The reality of a thing is beyond our senses and all we know is that a thing exists because it causes sensations in us. So as per Locke there are three entities…..there is a mind that perceives, there are perceptions and also a thing that causes the perceptions.

Berkeley took the gauntlet from here. He too believed that all our knowledge is gained from perception and what comes into our perception are only perceptions caused and not the actual thing. He accepted only these ideas from Locke and rejected the rest. 

Berkeley wrote two philosophical treatises to set forth his theory. His second book is in the style of Platos dialogues. They are between a materialist called Hilas and Philonus a non materialist. In these dialogues Berkley himself was Philonus.

What is heat? We perceive heat as our hand burns if we keep it on an object or near an object. It is felt only through mind. Therefore heat is just an idea in our mind but is not actually there in the things. Similarly with cold and all other ideas. Sweet taste makes you happy while bitter taste makes you unhappy. These are but perceptions and are dependent on your mind and they do not belong to the external things. 

Therefore everything depends on your perception and your mind. With this theory Berkeley refuted the absolute space and time of Newton. The speed of an object depends on the person perceiving it and not in the object itself. Whatever quality we perceive to be of the substance is not actually in the substance but is in our mind.

As per Locke if we are getting the perceptions in the mind it means that there has to be an object that is causing these sensations. But Berkeley rejected this theory. He said when all our mind can perceive are perceptions, when we are getting ideas only through perceptions how can we assume that there is something beyond them which we cannot perceive.

Therefore, nothing exists independently of the mind. The object exists because we perceive it. Only whatever we perceive exists and nothing else. It does not have any other existence apart from that. As per Berkeley “to be is to be perceived.” Then the question arises suppose I do not perceive does the world cease to exist? I am in a room and go out of it briefly; does the room cease to exist then? Even though I am not in the room as someone else perceives it so it continues to exist. Even if no one is looking at the room because God is looking at it, it will continue to exist.

So we can condense Berekely’s thought thus. Any material thing exists only as long as it is an idea in the mind but it does not have any independence existence. It can be me or another or even God who perceives it that would make it continue to exist.

Therefore if God does not exist then there is no world either because there is no one perceiving it continuously. So Berkeley asserted that God has to compulsorily exist in order for the world to exist. Berkeley felt happy that he finally proved the existence of God by this theory. Of course this has been the main aim of his philosophy.

One of Berkeley’s famous sentences is 

“All the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word , all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world have not any substance without the mind.” 

But we may ask, if we say that all the mind knows about are perceptions, then are we eating and drinking ideas? Berkeley says that those things exist for the mind but they do not have any existence beyond that.

We have a Buddhist philosophy known as Vijnanavada propounded by Asanga and Vasubandhu. It is also known as Yogachara and is similar to this philosophy. Vijnanavada does not believe in the independent existence of the external world.

JOHN LOCKE-EMPIRICISM

Empiricism like Materialism is a major field in Philosophy and it has flowered under the great John Locke the English philosopher, Bishop Berkeley the Irish genius and David Hume the Scottish intellectual. These 3 together form the triumvirate of British empiricism. This trend culminated in the philosophy of Hume which is very difficult to accept and equally difficult to refute. I am just giving the philosophy of Locke here in simple terms and hope to come out later with those of Berkeley and Hume.

JOHN LOCKE.

John Locke can be taken as the founder of empiricism in Western Philosophy. 

Materialism says that all the knowledge we acquire comes from the mind and reasoning whereas empiricism says that knowledge only comes from senses and experiences.

Locke was born in the year 1632 at a place called Rington near Bristol and was a philosopher for the Bourgeoisie that was rising fast then.

When the American constitution draft was prepared by Thomas Jefferson, he was strongly influenced by the theories of Locke. The declaration stating “……that all men are created equal, and they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…” is but a reflection of Locke’s views.

Locke studied at Oxford but the medieval philosophy that was being taught there did not satisfy him and slowly he came under the influence of Rene Descartes. He studied Physics, Chemistry and Medicine and became a fellow of the British Royal Society in 1668.

Locke became friendly with Lord Ashley who later became the Earl of Shaftsbury. The Earl was dead against King Charles II of England, and is close to the Parliament. During that time the Parliament got split into the Tories that are loyal to the King and the Whigs who are the representatives of Liberal Bourgeois. Earl Shaftsbury was the leader of the Whigs. The Earl was imprisoned by the King and ultimately ran away to Poland and died a year later. Locke’s career followed that of the Earl. He too ran away and when William became the King of England Locke returned back and settled in his home country. He was an advisor to the Whigs and became famous. The book that brought him fame was his “Essay concerning Human Understanding”. This is a key book for empiricism.

Locke says that when man is born his mind is like a clean slate( tabula rasa) without any ideas. He says that even ethics are not absolute and there is no universal morality. Qualities like good and bad change from country to country and even from time to time. Good for one is bad for another. For example if Bhagat Singh is a hero for us, he is a terrorist for the British. Therefore there are no universal values. Even the concept of God is not uniform with different communities.

If there are no universal truths then where are we getting the knowledge from? Locke says only through experience. We get all our ideas only through sensory experience. We get knowledge through sensations and reflection.

We tend to generalize things. For example beauty. One thing makes us happy and we like it and we define it as something beautiful. Therefore beauty depends on our perception which is generalized and there is no absolute beauty. Similar is the case for all other ideas too.

One thing is absolutely sure. We get many different sensory perceptions and there has to be something that is creating these perceptions. Locke calls it ‘Substance”. We perceive the substance only through the sensations we experience but it is only appearances and not the reality. What we experience is not the reality but what our sense organs present to us. Locke says that when we hear a song we feel that it is nice to hear. But this is only a creation of our mind and a deaf man hears nothing. The fragrance of a flower is recognized only by our mind. It is dependent only on the mind.

Thus Locke says that there are limits to such knowledge and this opinion is the foundation to his Liberalism.

Locke supports liberal democracy. His political views are set forth in two books on Civil Government. In the first book he proved that Kings did not have any divine rights. It is amazing that a book had to be written to prove this then. In his second book Locke described the crux of governance and its qualities.

Locke believed that in the ancient times man was in the natural state. In this natural state everything was perfect. Although there was no Government there is a law of nature amongst the people. All men are equal and all had equal liberties, but this liberty is not unbridled. Whatever they did towards their own benefit, they did not impinge on the others rights nor caused harm to others. But at the same time some of them violated the law of nature and tried to grab others property and harm others. For stopping such violators everyone had a right to punish them and everyone is their own judge. But in such a situation certain problems arose. Everyone is King; he is the accuser, judge and the enforcer of the punishment as well. This led to indiscriminate use of such powers which led to strife and disturbance. For solving this problem men forsook some rights and gave those rights to the Government which they established. They came together and formed a society and a Kingdom. This is the social contract of Locke. However, the government does not have the right to take the fundamental rights of the people. It only has the powers to protect those inalienable rights. In fact the Government has been formed only to protect those rights. Locke felt that the primary responsibility of the Government is to protect the properties of the people. If a Government does not perform that duty well, the people have a right to rebel against the Government and elect another.

Power should never be concentrated in a single person or a single institution. The people who make laws and those who enforce them should not be the same or else it would deteriorate into a dictatorship. Therefore a Government has to abide by some written rules (constitution). If any Government violates the written law the people have every right to remove it.

His theory points out that there are limitations to knowledge and it is very relative. Therefore each has their own right to believe whatever they want and is entitled to it. Therefore one should never affirm that he is in the right and then try to force it on the others. So people should respect each others views and religious and freedom of thought is essential. Good is something that is greatest good of the greatest number.

As can be seen Locke's philosophy is exactly reflecting the democratic governments of the present day.

SRINIVASA RAMANUJAN.

This man is most amazing. Look at his background which did not aid him any way to take the course he did. With hardly any input he came out with mathematical theorems and propositions that even top mathematicians found difficult to understand. And just like Sankaracharya he too died at the age of 32. Both men were geniuses in their own fields. Who knows what he would have achieved had he lived longer. One of my acquaintances mentioned his name to me today and I could not resist reading more about him and I thank Wikipedia for the information which I had abridged and rewritten.

Srinivasa Ramanujan was born at Erode Tamilnadu in 1887. His father Srinivasa Iyengar worked as a clerk in a saree shop and his mother was a housewife and also sang in the local temple in the town of Kumbakonam. He moved with his mother to her parents house at Kanchipuram later. After that the family moved back to Kumbakonam and from there again to Madras. Ramanujan did not like the school in Madras. And he tried avoiding it. In 6 months he was back in Kumbakonam. In 1897 at the age of 10 Ramanujan entered the town higher secondary school where he learnt formal mathematics for the first time.

From that time onwards Ramanujans mathematical genius flowered. By the age of 11 he completely learnt everything in mathematics from the two students who were lodgers at his home. By the age of 13 he completely mastered the advanced trigonometry of S.L.Loney and also discovered sophisticated theorems on his own. He completed the mathematical examinations in half the allotted time for the examinations. Ramanujan was solving cubic equations when he was just 15 years old and went on to solve the quartic equations.

When Ramanujan was just 16 he borrowed a copy of the book on mathematics by G.S.Carr. This book is generally acknowledged as the key element in awakening the genius of Ramanujan. Next year when he was just 17 he had independently developed and investigated the Bernoulli Numbers and calculated the Euler Mascheroni constant up to 15 decimal places. Ramanujan passed out from the school in 1904 when he was 17 years old. He won a scholarship for his brilliance in school for studying at Govt. Arts College, Kumbakonam. Ramanujan was so interested on mathematics that he ignored all other subjects and failed in most of them. 

In 1905 Ramanujan ran away from home towards Visakhapatnam and stayed at Rajahmundry for a month’s time. He then went back to Madras and enrolled at Pachiyappas college. He again excelled in mathematics but failed in other subjects for 2 consecutive years. He left the college without a degree and pursued an independent research on mathematics. At this time, he lived in extreme poverty and was on the brink of starvation.

In 1909 Ramanujan was married to a 10 year old girl Janakiammal. After marriage he developed a serious swelling of the testicles that could be easily corrected by surgery but neither he nor his family had the money required for the operation. Luckily for him a doctor volunteered to do the operation for free. After the surgery Ramanujan went around Madras door to door to obtain a clerical position. He tutored some students who were giving their FA exam in the Presidency College for living.

In 1910 Ramanujan met Deputy Collector V.Ramaswamy Iyer seeking a job in the revenue department. This man had founded the Indian Mathematical society. Iyer was struck by the value of the genius of Ramanujan and did not want to smother his talent by giving him a job. Instead he gave him a letter of introduction to his mathematician friends in Madras. The friends referred him to R.Ramachandra Rao the Collector of Nellore and the secretary of the Indian Mathematical Society. Ramachandra rao was impressed by the research but doubted if the work was actually done by Ramanujan himself. Ramanujan’s friend persuaded Ramachandra Rao who gave another audience to Ramanujan. Here Rmanujan discussed with Rao his various mathematical theories which converted Rao into believing the genius of Ramanujan. Rao then granted financial assistance to Ramanujan to take care of his daily needs while he continued his mathematical research.

Ramanujan first had his work published in the Indian Mathematical Journal and then continued to write in the journal. He then applied and got selected as a Grade III clerk in the Madras port trust at a salary of Rs 30 per month.

With the help of friends Ramanujan drafted letters to leading mathematicians at Cambridge University. The first two professors to whom the letters were sent returned the papers without any comment. Ramanujan then wrote to G.H.Hardy who initially suspected that it might be a fraud. But later he commented that he had never seen anything like them before. He thought that to invent such theorems is impossibility and therefore Ramanujan must be genuine. Hardy asked a colleague to look after the papers who was amazed at the mathematical genius of Ramanujan. After discussing the papers with his colleague Hardy concluded that Ramanujan is a man of exceptional originality and power.

Hardy invited Ramanujan to Cambridge but the latter refused saying that it is against his upbringing to leave the country and go to a foreign land over the sea. Another associate of Hardy, a mathematics Lecturer from Trinity College Cambridge examined Ramanujans work and called it amazing and again invited him to spend some time at Cambridge. As a result of this endorsement Ramanujan got a research scholarship of Rs 75 per month from the Board of the Madras University.

Finally Ramanujan left for England in 1914. Ramanujan worked in collaboration with Hardy and his colleague Littlewood for 5 years. Ramanujan was awarded a PhD.(then called BA) in 1916 for his work on highly composite numbers. He was elected as a fellow of the Royal society in 1918 at the age of 31 and was one of the youngest fellows of the Royal Society. Then in 1918 again he became the first India to get elected as the fellow of the Trinity College, Cambridge.

Ramanujans health worsened in England and he returned back to Kumbakonam in 1919 and died in the same year at the age of 32.

BLACK MONEY IN SWISS BANKS.

I think the quantum of black money in Swiss banks is unduly magnified by the media in India. Everyone has their own estimate but absolutely without any logical foundation. 

First of all why does a citizen need black money and how does he get it into Swiss banks? There are many ways of generating black money but the most important are:

1. Out of book transactions:

2. Manipulation of books of account:

3. Manipulation of sales/receipts/expenditure:

4. Corruption:

5. Manipulation by Way of International Transactions:

Out of the 5 major methods, only the 5th point generates foreign currency that could be stashed away in Swiss Banks.

Logically there is no reason for any Indian citizen to stash away money in Swiss banks when an area like the real estate in India gives them tremendous opportunity to invest the black money clandestinely avoiding all attention. Moreover the real estate sector delivers returns to them which no Swiss bank can match.

Therefore it appears that the money stashed away in Swiss banks is generated exclusively through international trade that cannot be channelized back to India easily. It may also include commissions on international contracts, specifically in areas like Defence.

Let us now examine as to what may be the quantum of black money in India. A.Schneider estimates, using economic variables arrived that the size of India's black money economy is between 23 to 26% of its GDP which is less than the average for Asian countries. The GDP of India is around 5,50,000 crores in 2012-13 at 2004-05 constant prices. If we take Schneiders estimates and consider the black money quantum to be 25%, then the black money in our economy is likely to be Rs 1,37,500 crores.

In early 2011, several reports in Indian media alleged Swiss Bankers Association officials to have said that the largest depositors of illegal foreign money in Switzerland are Indian. These allegations were later denied by Swiss Bankers Association as well as the central bank of Switzerland.

James Nason of Swiss Bankers Association alleged that the black money figures were rapidly picked up in the Indian media and in Indian opposition circles, and circulated as gospel truth. He stated that this story was a complete fabrication. The Swiss Bankers Association never said or published such a report. Anyone claiming to have such figures (for India) should be forced to identify their source and explain the methodology used to produce them.

Government has passed resolution for a Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement with Switzerland to provide means for investigations of black money in Swiss banks. This revision, will allow the government to make inquiries of Swiss banks in cases where they have specific information about possible black money being stored in Switzerland.

In 2011, the Indian government received the names of 782 Indians who had accounts with HSBC. As of December, 2011, the Finance Ministry has refused to reveal the names, for privacy reasons, though they did confirm that no current Members of Parliament are on the list. In response to demands from the BJP release of the information, the government announced on that it would publish a white paper about the HSBC information.

According to White Paper on Black Money in India report, published in May 2012, the Swiss National Bank estimates that the total amount of deposits in all Swiss banks, at the end of 2010, by citizens of India were INR 9,295 crore or US$ 2.1 billion. The Swiss Ministry of External Affairs has confirmed these figures upon request for information by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. Therefore the statement that Swiss banks accounts contain lakhs of crores of black money cannot be substantiated.

P.S.A lot of matter from the above write up has been taken from Wikipedia. It also contains information from other sites. The information is mixed with my own input for arriving at this. .

ANDHRA TELENGANA PROBLEM—GENESIS

The genesis of the Telengana problem has its roots in the Gentleman’s Agreement signed by the representatives of both Andhra and Telengana regions a list of who are given below.

Andhra region                                                            Telangana Region

B. Gopal Reddy                                                           B. Rama Krishna Rao

Chief Minister, Andhra State                                    Chief Minister, Hyderabad state 

N. Sanjeeva Reddy                                                     K.V. Ranga Reddy

G.Lachanna                                                                 M. Chenna Reddy 

Alluri Satyanarayana Raju                                          J.V. Narsing Rao

I am now giving the important points from the Gentleman’s Agreement. There are some other points which did not contribute to the present position, hence they are ignored.

A Regional Standing Committee:

1. There will be one legislature for the whole of Andhra Pradesh. 

2. Telangana region would have a Regional Standing Committee of MLA’s belonging to that region including the Ministers from that region but not including the Chief Minister.

3. The advice tendered by the Regional Committee will normally be accepted by the Government

4. The Regional Committee will deal with following matters:

1) Development and economic planning within the framework of the general development plans formulated by the State Legislature.

2) Local Self Government

3) Public health and sanitation, local hospitals and dispensaries.

4) Primary and secondary education.

5)Regulation of admission to the educational institutions in the telangana region.

6)Prohibition.

7) Sale of agricultural lands.

8) Cottage and small scale Industries.

9) Agriculture, Cooperative Societies, Markets and Fairs.

Unless revised by agreement earlier this arrangement will be reviewed after ten years.

B. Domicile Rules : Telangana is regarded as a unit as far as recruitment to subordinate services is concerned; posts borne on the cadre of these services may be reserved for being filled up by persons who satisfy the domicile conditions as prescribed under the existing Hyderabad Mulki Rules. ( 15 years of Stay in Telangana area)

C. Distribution of expenditure between Telangana and Andhra Regions. The expenditure of the new state on central and general administration should be borne proportionately by the two regions and the balance of income should be reserved for expenditure on the development of Telangana area.

D. Education: The existing educational facilities including Technical Education in Telangana should be secured to the students of Telangana and further improved.

E. Cabinet Quotas: The cabinet will consist of members in proportion of 60:40 percent for Andhra and Telangana respectively. If the Chief Minister is from one region the other region should be given Dy Chief Ministership.

PROBLEMS WITH THE AGREEMENT:

The people from Andhra who have signed the agreement seem to have done so in haste without deliberating about the consequences. . Neither could they visualize that such provisions can lead to dissatisfaction of the Telengana people as those would be impossible to implement.

Because of this agreement it would be a right of the MLA’s of Telengana who are on the SRC to go at variance with the majority opinion of the assembly on many major issues.

The Mulki domicile rules debar a person from the Andhra region to get employed in the subordinate services unless he was domiciled in the Telengana region for 15 years or more. The Mulki rules were challenged in the Supreme Court and was upheld by them in 1972. This sparked off the Jai Andhra movement for a separate Andhra state.

Reserving the seats in the educational institutions in Telengana to the students from Telengana is also difficult to implement once the region develops.

Although Dy CM from Telengana should have been appointed as per the agreement, it was never implemented.

So, I feel that the present crisis is because of those gentlemen who signed the agreement. They are so emotionally attached to the concept of a unified state for the Telugu people that their reason has failed them.

It is interesting to note that the SRC appointed by the then Government was against the immediate merger of Telengana with Andhra region as it felt that the large differential in the literacy of Andhra and Telengana was feared by the people of Telengana and hence the regions should not be merged. It can be done so later when approved by a two thirds majority of the Telengana legislators.

Another point here is that Gauthu Lachanna who was one of the signatories to the Gentlemen’s Agreement from the Andhra side took a leading role in the Jai Andhra agitation demanding a separate Andhra State and was jailed during the course of the movement. Perhaps by then he realized the folly he has committed by signing the agreement in haste. The jai Andhra agitation was ruthlessly suppressed and in the process 8 people died in the police firing.

FRANCIS BACON THE MEAN YET BRILLIANT PHILOSOPHER

Bacon has an amazing personality. After hating him for his misdeeds one finally has to acknowledge the contribution he made to modern philosophy. One can hate his personality but not his intellect.

There were many varieties of philosophers before Sir Francis Bacon, but Sir Francis Bacon is the first scientific philosopher. He is the philosopher that reflected the thinking of the modern world.

The modern era started in Europe before Bacon; Gutenburgh, Colombus, Vasco da Gama, Magellan, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, Vesalius, William Harvey and Shakespeare appeared and made the world a better place to live in. Bacon represents this modern era and gave it a philosophical justification.

In the olden times before the tremendous developments that took place in science most things are accepted without verification but the modern scientific outlook changed that and asserted that nothing be accepted without proof and verification. Bacon is a philosopher that represented this outlook.

It is the age of Queen Elizabeth which is considered to be the golden age in England. Bacon was born into an aristocratic family in the year 1561. His father Nicholas Bacon was the keeper of the great seal of the Queen and a politician. His mother Lady Ann Cook was very proficient in Greek and Latin and was also a philosopher.

The inheritance of genes from both sides has made Bacon both a politician and a philosopher as well. Unfortunately, they have not been complimentary and appeared separately on their own.

Till the age of 12 years, his mother herself taught him studies. He then joined the Trinity College at Cambridge. He was just 16 years old then but with a razor sharp intellect. Till that time Aristotle was considered an authority on many sciences in Europe. Bacon questioned that and entered into spats with professors on the validity of the Aristotilean systems. He said that Aristotle never checked any of his hypotheses with experiment and rejected all of them.

This is one side of Bacon. On the other side his father died when Bacon was just 18 and left him with an annual income of just 300 pounds and a small house. This is sheer poverty for Bacon. He is a spendthrift and lived a luxurious life. He has made making money by whatever means as the goal of his life. Perhaps if one may say, this may be one of the inheritances of the modern age.

Bacons near relative Sir William Cecil was the Prime Minister of Queen Elizabeth. Bacon lobbied with his uncle for a job in the court but his uncle did not oblige him. He then studied law in Greys Inn and became a famous lawyer, contested for the Parliament and won.

All his thoughts are concentrated on making money and political fame. For 12 years he did his best to get into the Queens court with no result. He then sought the help of the Earl of Essex who is great enemy of his uncle William Cecil. Bacon always spent ahead of his income and almost went to prison a number of times and the Earl of Essex saved him. The Earl even bequeathed an estate to him. Despite the Earls efforts he could not get Bacon into Elizabeth’s court. He wrote many books praising the Queen and gave many speeches with no result again.

After sometime a feud arose between the Earl and the Queen. The opponents of Essex charged him with treason and jailed him. Bacon like the cheat he was turned against Essex, testified against him and charged him with a plot to kill the queen and argued against him. Essex was sentenced to death and his head was cut off. Entire England despised Bacon for his mean mindedness, cheating nature and for stabbing his friend in the back.

That is why the famous English poet Alexander Pope remarked that there is no greater scientist, no greater intellectual and no greater shameless cheat than Bacon in the entire world.

Queen Elizabeth died in 1603 AD and James I from Scotland became the king. Bacon is now ready, he praised and praised James in his numerous letters and supported everything the King did in the Parliament. Finally the King yielded and appointed him as Solicitor General, then the Attorney General and finally Lord Chancellor who is the second highest ranked officer in the British Government. He became very rich and politically very powerful.

As usual it is his mean and cheating nature that brought his downfall. In less than 3 years there were hordes of corruption charges against him. He was tried, dismissed from his office and was imprisoned in the tower of London. After some time King James freed him after eliciting a confirmation from Bacon that he would not again come anywhere near the parliament or courts or into any administrative job.

Earlier he was writing his famous books when he was in politics. After being thrown out he lived in exile for 5 years when he devoted himself fully to philosophy. 

It is said that Rishi Agastya drank up all the oceans. Similarly Bacon imbibed all the world's sciences and proclaimed that I have taken all knowledge to be my province. Bacons Essays are a telling commentary of his knowledge and literate skills.

One wonders as to how Bacon after taking in so much knowledge and with all that brilliance became a miserable human being. Knowledge should lead one to light and not into darkness. But in Bacons case it did just the opposite. Yet, the modern world can never forget Bacon and his contribution to the advancement of humanity.

I will try to write about Bacons philosophy in another note sometime.

VEDIC PHILOSOPHY.

A number of us Hindus who go about our rituals do not really know anything much about our actual religion and philosophy. We simply follow the religion without actually knowing its basis.

I feel we should at least know the basic elements on which our religion is built. I am making a very brief write up on it with a hope that at least those who bother to read it would know a little more about it. The Vedas are pure nature worship in the Samhitas which later passes onto something much more deeper in the Upanishads. There is much more that can be written on this topic but I am restricting it only to the very basics lest it should tax the minds of those who bother to read it.

A layman of philosophy considers the Vedas to be one but that is not the case. In fact each Veda consists of 4 parts.

They are:

1. Samhita, 2. Brahmana, 3. Aranyaka , 4. Upanishads.

There are 4 Samhitas and they are the 1.Rik, 2. Sama, 3.Yajur and 4. Atharva. 

A vedic sacrifice needs 4 priests:

1. Hota- Who addresses hymns in praise of the gods to invoke their presence and participation in the sacrifice.

2. Udgata- Who sings the hymns to entertain and please the gods.

3. Adhvaryu- Who performs the sacrifice according to the strict ritualistic code and gives the offerings to the gods.

4. Brahma- The general supervisor well versed in all the Vedas.

Rik is for the Hota, Sama is for the Udgata, Yajur is for the Adhvaryu and Atharva is for the Brahma.

The Samhitas are in poetry and consist of hymns to various Gods.

The Brahmanas are written in prose. They are the elaboration of the complicated ritualism of the Vedas. They deal with the rules and regulations laid down for the performance of the rites and the sacrifices. There is little philosophy in these and the Samhitas.

The appendages to the Brahmanas are the Aranyakas. They mark the transition from ritualistic to philosophic thought. There is a mystic interpretation of the Vedic sacrifices in them.

The concluding portion of the Aranyakas are the Upanishads. These are intensely philosophical and spiritual.

There are said to be 108 Upanishads in all. However, only 10 on which Sankaracharya has commented are taken as important. They are

1. Isha, 2. Kena, 3. Katha, 4. Prashna, 5. Mundaka, 6. Mandukya, 7. Aitareya, 8. Taittiriya, 9. Chandogya, 10 Brihadaranyaka.

The Upanishads regard karma kanda as secondary, being only a help to purify the mind by which one is made fit to receive the real teaching about Brahman.