Knowledge is Power (Icon Science) by John Henry

Author:John Henry
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781785782510
Publisher: Icon Books Ltd

Figure 4: Illustration showing supposed corres-pondences between the microcosm, man, and the macrocosm, or world as a whole. This was an ancient and widespread belief, but was especially prominent in the magical tradition. The illustration is from the second volume of Robert Fludd’s Utriusque Cosmi Historia (History of Both Cosmoses, Oppenheim, 1619).

As far as Bacon was concerned, natural knowledge was not yet certain and secure enough to be used safely and unequivocally in establishing religious truths. Bacon might well have felt that Paracelsian alchemy was a better bet than any of its rivals in natural philosophy, but he was too convinced of the truth of the moderate Calvinism of the Elizabethan Church of England to subscribe to Paracelsian religious views. As far as Bacon was concerned, therefore, natural philosophy could only suffer by being dragged into intractable religious controversy, such as the dispute over the immortality or mortality of the soul. And religion could only lose if it tried to derive its principles not from the revelations of Holy Scripture, but from the partisan claims of natural philosophers like the Paracelsians.

It was better, he therefore believed, to keep science and religion apart, but this certainly did not mean that he felt religion was an irrelevance. On the contrary, he clung to the traditional view that the correct natural philosophy, if we could discover it, would be the perfect handmaid to the true religion. By the time he was writing these things, ‘Religious controversies have become a weariness of the spirit’, he said, and it was perhaps better to ‘contemplate the power, wisdom and goodness of God in His works’. But this should only serve to counter irreligion, not to promote a particular faction of the Christian Church. Caution is the watchword.

To conclude, therefore, let no man, upon a weak conceit of sobriety or an ill-applied moderation, think or maintain that a man can search too far or be too well studied in the book of God’s word [scripture] or in the book of God’s works [nature]; divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavour an endless progress or proficience in both; only let men beware … that they do not unwisely mingle or confound these learnings together (Advancement of Learning).

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