The Works of Francis Bacon, Volume 1

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F. C. and J. Rivington, J. Cuthell, 1819

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Page 39 - ... as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit, or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect, or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon, or a fort or commanding ground for strife and contention, or a shop for profit and sale ; and not a rich store-house for the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate.
Page 28 - It seems to me that Pygmalion's frenzy is a good emblem or portraiture of this vanity:* for words are but the images of matter; and except they have life of reason and invention, to fall in love with them is all one as to fall in love with a picture.
Page 142 - For the mind of man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass, wherein the beams of things should reflect according to their true incidence; nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of superstition and imposture, if it be not delivered and reduced.
Page 39 - ... a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit ; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect ; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon ; or a fort or commanding ground for strife...
Page 27 - Execrabilis ista turba, quae non novit legem^] for the winning and persuading of them, there grew of necessity in chief price and request eloquence and variety of discourse, as the fittest and forciblest access into the capacity of the vulgar sort.
Page 61 - Neither can any man marvel at the play of puppets, that goeth behind the curtain, and adviseth well of the motion. And for magnitude, as Alexander the Great, after that he was used to great armies, and the great conquests of the spacious provinces in Asia, when he received letters out of Greece, of some fights and services there, which were commonly for a passage or a fort or some walled town at the most, he said, " It seemed to him, that he was advertised of the battle of the frogs and the mice,...
Page 27 - Then grew the flowing and watery vein of Osorius, the Portugal bishop, to be in price. Then did Sturmius spend such infinite and curious pains upon Cicero the orator and Hermogenes the rhetorician, besides his own books of periods and imitation and the like. Then did Car of Cambridge, and Ascham, with their lectures and writings, almost deify Cicero and Demosthenes, and allure all young men that were studious unto that delicate and polished kind of learning.
Page 9 - ... if any man shall think by view and inquiry into these sensible and material things to attain that light whereby he may reveal unto himself the nature or will of God, then indeed is he spoiled by vain philosophy...
Page 35 - Antiquity deserveth that reverence, that men should make a stand thereupon and discover what is the best way; but when the discovery is well taken, then to make progression. And to speak truly, "Antiquitas saeculi juventus mundi." These times are the ancient times, when the world is ancient, and not those which we account ancient ordine retrograde, by a computation backward from ourselves.
Page 69 - The works touching books are two : first, libraries which are as the shrines where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed...

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