APHORISMS 



BOOK I 

 On the Interpretation of Nature and the Empire of Man 



MAN, as the minister and interpreter of nature, does and 

 understands as much as his observations on the order 

 of nature, either with regard to things or the mind, 

 permit him, and neither knows nor is capable of more. 



2. The unassisted hand and the understanding left to itself 

 possess but little power. Effects are produced by the means 

 of instruments and helps, which the understanding requires no 

 less than the hand ; and as instruments either promote or regu- 

 late the motion of the hand, so those that are applied to the 

 mind prompt or protect the understanding. 



3. Knowledge and human power are synonymous, since the 

 ignorance of the cause frustrates the effect ; for nature is only 

 iubdued by submission, and that which in contemplative phi- 

 losophy corresponds with the cause in practical science becomes 

 the rule. 



4. Man whilst operating can only apply or withdraw natural 

 bodies ; nature internally performs the rest. 



5. Those who become practically versed in nature are, the 

 mechanic, the mathematician, the physician, the alchemist, and 

 the magician, but all (as matters now stand) with faint efforts 

 and meagre success. 



6. It would be madness and inconsistency to suppose that 

 things which have never yet been performed can be performed 

 without employing some hitherto untried means. 



7. The creations of the mind and hand appear very numer- 

 ous, if we judge by books and manufactures ; but all that variety 

 consists of an excessive refinement, and of deductions from a 

 few well-known matters not of a number of axioms. 



8. Even the effects already discovered are due to chance and 

 experiment, rather than to the sciences; for our present sci- 

 ences are nothing more than peculiar arrangements of matters 

 already discovered, and not methods for discovery or plans for 

 new operations. 



9. The sole cause and root of almost every defect in the sci- 



