- logy had lost its true principles. To be sure he agreed with
astronomy presenting the exterior of celestial phenomena, that is to say, the number, situation, movement, and periods of the stars; but he accused it of lacking in understanding of the physical reasons of these phenomena. He believed that a single theory which contents itself with appearances is a very easy thing, and that one can imagine an infinity of speculations of this sort; also he wished that the science of astronomy might be further advanced.
Instead of revealing the reasons of celestial phenomena [he
said], one is occupied only with observations and mathematical
demonstrations; for these observations and these demonstrations
can indeed furnish certain ingenious hypotheses to settle all that
in one's mind, and to make an idea of this assemblage, but not
to know precisely how and why all this is actually in nature:
they indicate, at the most, the apparent movements, the artificial
assemblage, the arbitrary combination of all these phenomena,
but not the veritable causes and the reality of things: and
as to this subject [he continues], it is with very little judgment
that astronomy is ranked among the mathematical sciences;
this classification derogates from its dignity.[1]
Regarding astrological science, Bacon wished that it might
be regenerated completely by bringing it back to its real
principles, that is to say, that one should reject all that the
vulgar had added thereto, both narrow and superstitious,
preserving only the grand revolutions of the ancients. These
ideas, as is quite obvious, are not at all in accord with those
that his disciples have adopted since; also the greater part
of them refrain from citing similar passages.
18. Neglect not thy health . . .
I had at first the intention of making here some allusion to the manner in which Pythagoras and the ancient sages considered medicine; and I had wished to reveal their prin-*
- ↑ Ut supra.
