Francis Bacon Quotes on Philosophy (8 Quotes)


    All good moral philosophy is but a handmaid to religion.

    A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.

    Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism, but larger amounts bring us back to God.

    The men of experiment are like the ant, they only collect and use the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes the middle course it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own. Not unlike this is the true business of philosophy (science) for it neither relies solely or chiefly on the powers of the mind, nor does it take the matter which it gathers from natural history and mechanical experiments and lay up in the memory whole, as it finds it, but lays it up in the understanding altered and digested. Therefore, from a closer and purer league between these two faculties, the experimental and the rational (such as has never been made), much may be hoped.

    Philosophy, when superficially studied, excites doubt when thoroughly explored, it dispels it.


    Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, even if religion vanished but religious superstition dismounts all these and erects an absolute monarchy i.

    Histories make men wise poets, witty the mathematics, subtle natural philosophy, deep morals, grave logic And rhetoric, able to contend.

    For it is esteemed a kind of dishonour unto learning to descend to inquiry or meditation upon matters mechanical, except they be such as may be thought secrets, rarities, and special subtleties, which humour of vain supercilious arrogancy is justly derided in Plato.... But the truth is, they be not the highest instances that give the securest information as may well be expressed in the tale ... of the philosopher, that while he gazed upwards to the stars fell into the water for if he had looked down he might have seen the stars in the water, but looking aloft he could not see the water in the stars. So it cometh often to pass, that mean and small things discover great, better than great can discover the small.


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