Valerius Terminus: Of the Interpretation of Nature

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

Bacon, Francis

Science -- Methodology

| commentator, of whose
                                           | annotations we have no remains,
                                           | that of Hermes Stella. It may
                                           | be conjectured that by the name
                                           | Terminus he intended to
                                           | intimate that the new
                                           | philosophy would put an end to
                                           | the wandering of mankind in
                                           | search of truth, that it would
                                           | be the TERMINUS AD QAEM in
                                           | which when it was once attained
                                           | the mind would finally
                                           | acquiesce.
                                           |
                                           | Again the obscurity of the text
                                           | was to be in some measure
                                           | removed by the annotations of
                                           | Stella; not however wholly, for
                                           | Bacon in the epitome of the
                                           | eighteenth chapter commends the
                                           | manner of publishing knowledge
                                           | 'whereby it shall not be to the
                                           | capacity nor taste of all, but
                                           | shall as it were single and
                                           | adopt his reader.' Stella was
                                           | therefore to throw a kind of
                                           | starlight on the subject,
                                           | enough to prevent the student's
                                           | losing his way, but not much
                                           | more."
                                           |
                                           | Die andere klassische
                                           | Interpretation gibt Anderson
                                           | (op.cit.16/17):
                                           |
                                           | "The word 'terminus' probably
                                           | indicates the 'limits and end'
                                           | to which investigation may
                                           | proceed. The ANNOTATIONS, of
                                           | which 'none are set down in
                                           | this fragments'--to quote a
                                           | statement written on the

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Valerius Terminus: Of the Interpretation of Nature

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