Large as life: Francis Bacon on the animate matter of plants

Abstract

As paradigmatic instantiations of animate matter, plants are natural specimens of both large and long life in Francis Bacon's philosophy. More than animals do, they display the power of physical growth and temporal continuity. More than the minerals do, they boost connectivity and fluidity. As a direct expression of animate matter, the life of plants is bountiful, real and supple. The way they grow redefines the very norms of measure and form in nature. Here the adjective ‘large’, when used to qualify the life of plants, indicates that such variables as size, proportion and hierarchy may vary dramatically when matter takes on the state of vegetal animation. Bacon is certainly aware of the threatening impact that this view may have on the way in which we understand and handle reality: nature, which does not listen to human reason, has within itself the potential to grow out of proportion, ignoring the laws of form, order and measure. In this respect, plants set a bad example as they display remarkable powers of plasticity and metamorphosis in matter. Bacon, however, is more interested in the observable and experimental reality of plants, for this aspect of the investigation could have decisive implications within the greater scheme of the Great Instauration.