Valerius Terminus: Of the Interpretation of Nature

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

Bacon, Francis

Science -- Methodology

| who contributed in the early
                                           | seventeenth century to the
                                           | development of science were different
                                           | from the goals of individual sanctity
                                           | or literary immortality and from the
                                           | aims of an exceptional and "demonic"
                                           | personality.
                                           |
                                           | A chaste patience, a natural modesty,
                                           | grave and composed manners, a smiling
                                           | pity are the characteristics of the
                                           | man of science in Bacon's portrait of
                                           | him. In the REDARGUTIO PHILOSOPHIARUM
                                           | Bacon wrote:
                                           |
                                           | Then he told me that in Paris a
                                           | friend had taken him along and
                                           | introduced him to a gathering, 'the
                                           | sight of which', he said, 'would
                                           | rejoice your eyes. lt was the
                                           | happiest experience of my life'.
                                           | There were some fifty men there, all
                                           | of mature years, not a young man
                                           | among them, all bearing the stamp of
                                           | dignity and probity... At his entry
                                           | they were chatting easily among
                                           | themselves but sitting in rows as if
                                           | expecting somebody. Not long after
                                           | there entered to them a man of
                                           | peaceful and serene air, save that
                                           | his face had become habituated to the
                                           | expression of pity... he took his
                                           | seat, not on a platform or pulpit,
                                           | but on level with the rest and
                                           | delivered the following address...
                                           | (III, 559; Farrington's translation).
                                           |
                                           | Bacon's portrait doubtless resembles
                                           | Galileo or Einstein more than it does

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Valerius Terminus: Of the Interpretation of Nature

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