Sublime

“Fortune always will confer an aura of worth, unworthily, and in this world the lucky person passes for a genius.” EURIPIDES, THE HERCLEIDAE, C. 429 BCE

Man is many things, but he is not rational.

The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way into the secret of things. I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is necessary.

‘Tis a sign of crudity and indigestion to disgorge what we eat in the same condition it was swallowed; the stomach has not performed its office unless it have altered the form and condition of what was committed to it to concoct.

misleads the penetration of genius itself? The people has neither the time nor the means which are essential to the prosecution of an investigation of this kind: its conclusions are hastily formed from a superficial inspection of the more prominent features of a question.

O mesmo se aplica a mim: vejo melhor que qualquer outro que estes meus escritos não passam de devaneios de homem que das ciências provou apenas a primeira casca, na infância, e delas só reteve uma ideia geral e disforme: de cada coisa um pouco, de profundo, nada, à francesa.

“A little learning is a dangerous thing; / Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.”)

Bacon’s own experiments are of slight scientific value, nor was he very familiar with some of the most important discoveries of his own day; but the fundamental principles laid down by him form the foundation of modern scientific method.