Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum; New Atlantis; Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Meditations on First Philosophy; Objections against the Meditations and Replies; The Geometry; Ethics

Top Highlights

“Bacon was born January 22, 1561, in York House, London. He was the youngest son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Seal and Chancellor. His mother, Lady Anne Cooke, enjoyed some renown as a classicist and was sister-in-law to Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley.” (Page xi)

“The parts of human learning have reference to the three parts of man’s understanding, which is the seat of learning: history to his memory, poesy to his imagination, and philosophy to his reason.” (Page 32)

“And since all the same thoughts and conceptions which we have while awake may also come to us in sleep, without any of them being at that time true, I resolved to assume that everything that ever entered into my mind was no more true than the illusions of my dreams. But immediately afterwards I noticed that whilst I thus wished to think all things false, it was absolutely essential that the ‘I’ who thought this should be somewhat, and remarking that this truth ‘I think, therefore I am’ was so certain and so assured that all the most extravagant suppositions brought forward by the sceptics were incapable of shaking it, I came to the conclusion that I could receive it without scruple as the first principle of the Philosophy for which I was seeking.” (Page 275)

“History, which may be called just and perfect history, is of three kinds, according to the object which it propoundeth, or pretendeth to represent: for it either representeth a time, or a person, or an action. The first we call chronicles, the second lives, and the third narrations or relations. Of these, although the first be the most complete and absolute kind of history, and hath most estimation and glory, yet the second excelleth it in profit and use, and the third in verity and sincerity.” (Pages 34–35)