Items related to The Works of Francis Bacon (Volume 4)
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1858 Excerpt: ... APHORISMS CONCEHNINO THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE AND THE KINGDOM OF MAN. Aphorism I. Man, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature: beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything. IL Neither the naked hand nor the understanding left to itself can effect much. It is by instruments and helps that the work is done, which are as much wanted for the understanding as for the hand. And as the instruments of the hand either give motion or guide it, so the instruments of the mind supply either suggestions for the understanding or cautions. III. Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the eifect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule. IV. Towards the effecting of works, all that man can do is to put together or put asunder natural bodies. The rest is done by nature working within. v. The study of nature with a view to works is engaged in by the mechanic, the mathematician, the physician, the alchemist, and the magician; but by all (as things now are) with slight endeavour and scanty success. VI. It would be an unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried. VII. The productions of the mind and hand seem very numerous in books and manufactures. But all this variety lies in an exquisite subtlety and derivations from a few things already known; not in the number of axioms. VIII. Moreover the works already known are due to chance and experiment rather than to sciences; for the sciences we now possess are merely s...
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Book Description:
Francis Bacon (1561–1626), the English philosopher, statesman and jurist, is best known for devising the empiricist method which forms the basis of modern science. This fourteen-volume edition, published 1857–74, arranges his complete works by subject matter: philosophy and general literature; legal works; and letters, political speeches and tracts.
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- PublisherGeneral Books LLC
- Publication date2012
- ISBN 10 1459003179
- ISBN 13 9781459003170
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages174
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