The Works of Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England: A New Edition:, Volume 2William Pickering., 1825 |
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Popular passages
Page 360 - The End of our Foundation is the knowledge of Causes and secret motions of things, and the enlarging of the bounds of Human Empire, to the effecting of all things possible.
Page x - But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or furthest end of knowledge. For men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of...
Page 39 - This kind of degenerate learning did chiefly reign amongst the Schoolmen : who having sharp and strong wits, and abundance of leisure, and small variety of reading, but their wits being shut up in the cells of a few authors (chiefly Aristotle their dictator...
Page x - ... and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men: 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 or sale ; and not a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator and...
Page ix - For the wit and mind of man, if it work upon matter, which is the contemplation of the creatures of God, worketh according to the stuff and is limited thereby; but if it work upon itself, as the spider worketh his web, then it is endless, and brings forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit.
Page xv - So that if the invention of the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, and consociateth the most remote regions in participation of their fruits, how much more are letters to be magnified, which as ships pass through the vast seas of time, and make ages so distant to participate of the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, the one of the other?
Page 51 - ... 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 ix - 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 86 - We see then how far the monuments of wit and learning are more durable than the monuments of power or of the hands. For have not the verses of Homer continued twenty-five hundred years or more, without the loss of a syllable or letter; during which time, infinite palaces, temples, castles, cities, have been decayed and demolished? It is not possible to have the true pictures or statues of Cyrus, Alexander, Caesar, no nor of the kings or great personages of much later years ; for the originals cannot...
Page 51 - But the greatest error of all the rest, is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or furthest end of knowledge : for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity, and inquisitive appetite ; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation ; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction ; and most times for...