Works of Francis Bacon, Volumen8

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Brown and Taggard, 1863

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Página 67 - Human knowledge and human power meet in one ; for where the cause is not known the effect 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.
Página 67 - 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.
Página 36 - I say nothing ; but in behalf of the business which is in hand I entreat men to believe that it is not an opinion to be held, but a work to be done ; and to be well assured that I am labouring to lay the foundation, not of any sect or doctrine, but of human utility and power.
Página 147 - But for my part I do not trouble myself with any such speculative and withal unprofitable matters. My purpose, on the contrary, is to try whether I cannot in very fact lay more firmly the foundations, and extend more widely the limits, of the power and greatness of man.
Página 67 - 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.
Página 60 - There remains but one conrse for the recovery of a sound and healthy condition, — namely, that the entire work of the understanding be commenced afresh, and the mind itself be from the very outset not left to take its own course, but guided at every step ; and the business be done as if by machinery.
Página 70 - The syllogism consists of propositions, propositions consist of words, words are symbols of notions. Therefore if the notions themselves (which is the root of the matter) are confused and overhastily abstracted from the facts, there can be no firmness in the superstructure. Our only hope therefore lies in a true induction.
Página 75 - One method of delivery alone remains to us which is simply this: we must lead men to the particulars themselves, and their series and order; while men on their side must force themselves for a while to lay their notions by and begin to familiarize themselves with facts.
Página 83 - The human understanding is of its own nature prone to abstractions and gives a substance and reality to things which are fleeting. But to resolve nature into abstractions is less to our purpose than to dissect her into parts; as did the school of Democritus, which went further into nature than the rest.
Página 137 - The understanding must not however be allowed to jump and fly from particulars to remote axioms and of almost the highest generality (such as the first principles, as they are called, of arts and things), and taking stand upon them as truths that cannot be shaken, proceed to prove and frame the middle axioms by reference to them: which has been the practice hitherto...

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