Bacon

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Low, 1881 - 202 pages
 

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Page 181 - It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism ; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion...
Page 187 - IT were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy of him ; for the one is unbelief, the other is contumely; and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity. Plutarch saith well to that purpose ;
Page 41 - Goodness I call the habit, and goodness of nature the inclination. This of all virtues and dignities of the mind is the greatest, being the character of the Deity ; and, without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing, no better than a kind of vermin.
Page 42 - Wisdom for a man's self is in many branches thereof a depraved thing ; it is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house somewhat before it fall; it is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out the badger who digged and made room for him; it is the wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour ; but that which is specially to be noted is that those which, as Cicero says of Pompey, are sui amantes sine rivali...
Page 184 - Concerning the means of procuring unity, men must beware, that, in the procuring or muniting* of religious unity, they do not dissolve and deface the laws of charity and of human society. There be two swords amongst Christians, the spiritual and the temporal, and both have their due office and place in the maintenance of religion...
Page 104 - It may also be asked (in the way of doubt rather than objection) whether I speak of natural philosophy only, or whether I mean that the other sciences, logic, ethics, and politics, should be carried on by this method. Now I certainly mean what I have said to be understood of them all...
Page 146 - For the handling of final causes mixed with the rest in physical inquiries, hath intercepted the severe and diligent inquiry of all real and physical causes...
Page 108 - ... the received and inveterate opinion that the inquisition of man is not competent to find out essential Forms or true differences...
Page 87 - I think good to note only one deficience; which is, that all those which have written of laws have written either as philosophers or as lawyers, and none as statesmen. As for the philosophers, they make imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths ; and their discourses are as the stars, which give little light, because they are so high.
Page 102 - But the bee takes a middle course, it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own. Not unlike this is the true business of philosophy: for it neither relies solely or chiefly on the powers of the mind, nor does it take the matter which it gathers from natural history and mechanical experiments and lay it up in the memory whole, as it finds it; but lays it up in the understanding altered and digested. Therefore from a closer...

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