In existographies, Francis Bacon (1561-1626) (IQ:190|#27) (Cattell 1000:5) [RGM:130|1,500+] (Gottlieb 1000:84) (LPKE:4|18+) (GPhE:#) [CR:149] was English physicist, natural philosopher, and general polymath, a said to be last person to know everything, a commentator on atheism, a pioneer of the scientific method, noted for being one of the first to state, in circa 1600, that heat is motion. [1] Bacon was one of the first to define impelling power. [3] “Nay, even that school which is most accused of atheism doth most demonstrate religion; that is, the school of Leucippus and Democritus and Epicurus. For it is a thousand times more credible, that four mutable elements, and one immutable fifth essence, duly and eternally placed, need no God, than that an army of infinite small portions, or seeds unplaced, should have produced this order and beauty, without a divine marshal.”
“Atheism leads a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation, all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not but superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men.”— Francis Bacon (1625) (Ѻ)
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| A 5-volume Francis Bacon collected works set (Ѻ); a 15-volume collection was also published in circa 1900 by Houghton Mifflin. (Ѻ) |
“It is certain that all bodies whatsoever, though they have no sense, yet they have perception; for when one body is applied to another, there is a kind of election to embrace that which is agreeable, and to exclude or expel that which is ingrate; and whether the body be alterant or altered, evermore perception precedeth operation; for else all bodies would be like one to another.”
“Bacon was the wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind.”— Alexander Pope (c.1730), Publication [13]
“Who is there that upon hearing the name of Lord Bacon does not instantly recognize everything of genius the most profound, everything of literature the most extensive, everything of discovery the most penetrating, everything of observation of human life the most distinguished and refined.”— Edmund Burke (c.1780), Publication [13]
“It is generally allowed that Lord Bacon of Verulam comprehended nearly the whole circle of human knowledge at the period in which he lived, and foresaw most of the discoveries which have since been made. He laid the foundation of an encyclopedia, and was very near discovering various important philosophical results, such as the weight of the air, &c.”— Charles F. Partington (1825), note on Edward Somerset’s 1663 universal character theory [14]
“Knowledge is power.”— Francis Bacon (c.1610) [6]
“Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.”— Francis Bacon (c.1610) [9]
“The worst of all things is defied error.”— Francis Bacon (c.1610), Publication (Ѻ); cited by Robert Owen (1829) in Evidences of Christianity: a Debate Between Robert Owen and Alexander Campbell (pg. 92)
“Truth is the daughter of time.”— Francis Bacon (c.1610) (Ѻ)
“We are much beholden to Machiavelli and others who write what men do and not what they ought to do.”— Francis Bacon (c.1610), cited by Lawrence Henderson (1935) [11]
“The first question concerning the celestial bodies, is whether there be a system, i.e., whether they world or universe compose altogether one globe, with a center; or whether the particular globes of earth and the stars be scattered dispersedly, each on its own roots, without any system or common center.”— Francis Bacon (c.1610), Intellectual Description of the Globes (Descriptio globi intellecualis); in Philosophical Works (1905) (pg. 683); cited by Arthur Lovejoy (1933) in The Great Chain of Being (pg. 108)
“If it be granted that the earth moves, it would seem more natural to suppose that there is no system at all, but scattered globes, than to constitute a system of which the sun is the center.”— Francis Bacon (c.1610), Intellectual Description of the Globes (Descriptio globi intellecualis); in Philosophical Works (1905) (pg. 685); cited by Arthur Lovejoy (1933) in The Great Chain of Being (pg. 110)
“We ought to make a collection of particular history of all monsters and prodigious births or productions, and in a word of every thing new, rare, and extraordinary in nature. But this must be done with the most severe scrutiny, lest we depart from truth. Above all, every relation must be considered as suspicious, which depends in any degree upon religion, as the prodigies of Livy: and no less so, everything that is to be found in the writers of natural magic or alchemy, or such authors, who seem, all of them, to have an unconquerable appetite for falsehood and fable.”— Francis Bacon (1620), Novum Organum (book 2, aphorism 29); cited by David Hume (1748) in “Of Miracles” [12]
“It is certain that all bodies whatsoever, though they have no sense, yet they have perception; for when one body is applied to another, there is a kind of election to embrace that which is agreeable, and to exclude or expel that which is ingrate; and whether the body be alterant or altered, evermore a perception precedeth operation; for else all bodies would be like one to another. And sometimes, this perception, in some kind of bodies, is far more subtle than sense; so that sense is but a dull thing in comparison of it: we see a weatherglass will find the least difference of the weather in heat or cold, when we find it not. And this perception is sometimes at a distance, as well as upon the touch; as when the loadstone draweth iron; or flame naphtha of Babylon; a great distance, as well as upon the touch; as when the loadstone quiry, to enquire of the more subtile perceptions; for it is another key to open nature, as well as the sense; and sometimes better. And besides, it is a principal means of natural divination; for that which in these perceptions appeareth early, in the great effects cometh long after.”— Francis Bacon (1620), Forest of Forests: a Natural History; cited by Alfred Whitehead (1925); Trevor Levere (1971); Libb Thims (2007) [5]
