Talk:Francis Bacon

[[Image:[[Media:Are the quotes re: the domination of a (feminised) nature legitimate? I'm referring to these ones:[[Media:Example.ogg]'Bold text']

"My only earthly wish is... to stretch the deplorably narrow limits of man's dominion over the uiniverse to their promised bounds... [nature will be] bound into service, hounded in her wanderings and put on the rack and tortured for her secrets."

"I am come in very truth leading you to Nature with all her children to bind her to your service and make her your slave... the mechanical inventions of recent years do not merely exert a gentle guidance over Nature's courses, they have the power to conquer and subdue her, to shake her to her foundations."

Looking through e-texts on the internet, I can't find any corroboration of these attributions.

The closest match I can find to the first quote (which contains a typo, by the way) is: "The use of this work, honoured with a precedent in Aristotle, is nothing less than to give contentment to the appetite of curious and vain wits, as the manner of Mirabilaries is to do; but for two reasons, both of great weight: the one to correct the partiality of axioms and opinions, which are commonly framed only upon common and familiar examples; the other because from the wonders of Nature is the nearest intelligence and passage towards the wonders of art, for it is no more but by following and, as it were, hounding Nature in her wanderings, to be able to lead her afterwards to the same place again."

The second quote I can't find at all. -David D'Andrea

• • I too cannot find these particular quotes, after a thorough reading of the text. I have removed them from the article, leaving them here for further discussion. Should evidence of their validity be produced, they can be reinstated in the article. ~ UDScott 13:49, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Background to the second quote is given in 'In Defense of Bacon' by Alan Soble, Vol. 25, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 06-01-1995, pp 192. --84.92.127.242 09:29, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

The Great Instauration and New Atlantis

Look for these quotes in Bacon, Francis, "The Great Instauration and New Atlantis" (Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1980), pp viii, 21, 31.

Alphabetic order?

Do others agree that the Essays (1625) should be arranged in alphabetic order? On Adversity, On Atheism, etc.? --Bradeos Graphon 16:44, 2 March 2008 (UTC)]]]]

Quote removed from page.

The following quote was removed from the page by another editor. Please discuss whether it should be included on the page. Cheers! BD2412 T 20:32, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

• His achievement was not the less great because it was indirect. His philosophical works, though little read now, “moved the intellects which moved the world.” He made himself the eloquent voice of the optimism and resolution of the Renaissance. Never was any man so great a stimulus to other thinkers… The whole tenor and career of British thought have followed the philosophy of Bacon. His tendency to conceive the world in Democritean mechanical terms gave to his secretary, Hobbes, the starting-point for a thorough-going materialism; his inductive metbod gave to Locke the idea of an empirical psychology, bound by observation and freed from theology and metaphysics; and his emphasis on “commodities” and “fruits” found formulation in Bentham’s identification of the useful and the good. Wherever the spirit of control has overcome the spirit of resignation, Bacon’s influence has been felt. He is the voice of all those Europeans who have changed a continent from a forest into a treasure-land of art and science, and have made their little peninsula the center of the world… Everything is possible to man. Time is young; give us some little centuries, and we shall control and remake all things. We shall perhaps at last learn the noblest lesson of all, that man must not fight man, but must make war only on the obstacles that nature offers to the triumph of man.
  • Will Durant, The History of Philosophy

Glad to see that this excellent quote was reinserted shortly after this question was raised.Cheers! Om777om (talk) 18:33, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Removed unsourced quote

• I do plainly and ingenuously confess that I am guilty of corruption, and do renounce all defense. I beseech your Lordships to be merciful to a broken reed.
  • On being charged by Parliament with corruption in office (1621)

Will-SeymoreIII (talk)