Virtue Is Like Precious Odours,-most Fragrant When

It Is Madness And A Contradiction To Expect That Things Which Were Never Yet Performed Should Be Effected, Except By Means Hitherto Untried.

No One Has Yet Been Found So Firm Of Mind And Purpose As Resolutely To Compel Himself To Sweep Away All Theories And Common Notions, And To Apply The Understanding, Thus Made Fair And Even, To A Fresh Examination Of Particulars. Thus It Happens That Human Knowledge, As We Have It, Is A Mere Medley And Ill-digested Mass, Made Up Of Much Credulity And Much Accident, And Also Of The Childish Notions Which We At First Imbibed.

The Syllogism Consists Of Propositions, Propositions Consist Of Words, Words Are Symbols Of Notions. Therefore If The Notions Themselves (which Is The Root Of The Matter) Are Confused And Over-hastily Abstracted From The Facts, There Can Be No Firmness In The Superstructure. Our Only Hope Therefore Lies In A True Induction.

The Desire Of Excessive Power Caused The Angels To Fall; The Desire Of Knowledge Caused Men To Fall.

The Human Understanding Of Its Own Nature Is Prone To Suppose The Existence Of More Order And Regularity In The World Than It Finds.