Works of Francis Bacon, Volume 1

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Brown and Taggard, 1861
 

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Page 37 - Aristotle ; not for the worthlessness of the author, to whom he would ever ascribe all high attributes, but for the unfruitfulness of the way ; being a philosophy (as his lordship used to say) only strong for disputations and contentions, but barren of the production of works for the benefit of the life of man ; in which mind he continued to his dying day.
Page 51 - No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of the own graces : his hearers could not cough, or look aside from him, without loss. He commanded where he spoke, and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make an end.
Page 48 - Deipnosophistarum, wherein a man might be refreshed in his mind and understanding no less than in his body. And I have known some, of no mean parts, that have professed to make use of their note-books when they have risen from his table.
Page 69 - ... density, of tenuity, of heat, of cold, and all other natures and qualities, which, like an alphabet, are not many, and of which the essences (upheld by matter) of all creatures do consist ; to inquire, I say, the true forms of these, is that part of metaphysic which we now define of.
Page 227 - Homo, naturae minister et interpres, tantum facit et intelligit, quantum de naturae ordine re vel mente observaverit ; nee amplius scit aut potest.
Page 255 - At longe subtilius serpit hoc malum in philosophiis et scientiis ; in quibus quod semel placuit reliqua (licet multo firmiora et potiora) inficit, et in ordinem redigit. Quinetiam licet abfuerit ea, quam diximus, delectatio et vanitas, is tamen humano intellectui error est proprius et perpetuus, ut magis moveatur et excitetur affirmativis, quam negativis...
Page 44 - I was the justest judge that was in England these fifty years. But it was the justest censure in Parliament that was these two hundred years.
Page 141 - I myself have seen at the least twelve copies of the Instauration, revised year by year one after another, and every year altered and amended in the frame thereof, till at last it came to that model in which it was committed to the press; as many living creatures do lick their young ones, till they bring them to their strength of limbs.
Page 335 - Quod si quis humani generis ipsius potentiam et imperium in rerum universitatem instaurare et amplificare conetur, ea proculdubio ambitio (si modo ita vocanda sit) reliquis et sanior est et augustior. Hominis autem imperium in res, in solis artibus et scientiis ponitur. Naturae enim non imperatur, nisi parendo n.
Page 85 - For that his method is impracticable cannot I think be denied, if we reflect not only that it never has produced any result, but also that the process by which scientific truths have been established cannot be so presented as even to appear to be in accordance with it.

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