Valerius Terminus: Of the Interpretation of Nature

Name: Valerius Terminus: Of the Interpretation of Nature
Author: Bacon, Francis

Bacon, Francis

Science -- Methodology

| refuted their non-participatory
                                           | method and their intentional
                                           | unintelligibility, their attempt to
                                           | replace human sweat by a few drops of
                                           | elixir. But he borrows from the
                                           | magico-alchemical tradition the idea
                                           | that man can attempt to make himself
                                           | the master of nature. Bacon
                                           | understands knowledge not as
                                           | contemplation or recognition, but as
                                           | VENATIO, a hunt, an exploration of
                                           | unknown lands, a discovery of the
                                           | unknown. Nature can be transformed
                                           | from its foundations. Bacon's
                                           | definition of man as "the servant and
                                           | interpreter of Nature" is the same
                                           | definition we find in the magico-
                                           | alchemical tradition, for instance in
                                           | the texts of Cornelius Agrippa von
                                           | Nettesheim.
                                           |
                                           | But for all the exponents of magic
                                           | and alchemistic culture, the texts of
                                           | ancient wisdom take the form of
                                           | sacred texts which indude secrets
                                           | that only a few men can decipher The
                                           | truth is hidden in the past and in
                                           | the profound. Like when dealing with
                                           | sacred texts, it is necessary
                                           | continuously to go BEYOND THE LETTER,
                                           | in search of a message which is more
                                           | and more hidden.The secret message
                                           | expresses a Truth which is at the
                                           | Origins and which is always the same.
                                           |
                                           | In the Hermetic tradition, as in the
                                           | tradition of Platonism, the natural
                                           | world is conceived as the image or

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Valerius Terminus: Of the Interpretation of Nature

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