Many secrets of art and nature are thought by the unlearned to be magical.
Roger Bacon (c.1220-1292) English philosopher and scientist
(Attributed)
Quotations by:
Bacon, Roger
Argument is conclusive … but … it does not remove doubt, so that the mind may never rest in the sure knowledge of the truth, unless it finds it by the method of experiment. For if any man who never saw fire proved by satisfactory arguments that fire burns, his hearer’s mind would never be satisfied, nor would he avoid the fire until he put his hand in it that he might learn by experiment what argument taught.
Roger Bacon (c.1220-1292) English philosopher and scientist
Opus Maius, Part 4, ch. 1 (1267)
Argument is conclusive … but … it does not remove doubt, so that the mind may never rest in the sure knowledge of the truth, unless it finds it by the method of experiment. For if any man who never saw fire proved by satisfactory arguments that fire burns, his hearer’s mind would never be satisfied, nor would he avoid the fire until he put his hand in it that he might learn by experiment what argument taught.
Roger Bacon (c.1220-1292) English philosopher and scientist
Opus Majus, Pt 4, ch. 1 (c. 1270 (pub. 1733))
There are four chief obstacles in grasping truth … namely, submission to faulty and unworthy authority, influence of custom, popular prejudice, and the concealment of our own ignorance accompanied by an ostentatious display of our knowledge.
Roger Bacon (c.1220-1292) English philosopher and scientist
Opus Majus, Vol 1, “The Causes of Error” (c. 1270 (pub. 1733))
Alt trans: "There are in fact four very different stumbling blocks in the way of grasping the truth, which hinder every man however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win a clear title to wisdom, namely, the example of weak and unworthy authority, longstanding custom, the feeling of the ignorant crowd, and the hiding of our own ignorance while making a display of our apparent knowledge."