The ideas of the divine "are the creator's own stamp upon creation, impressed and defined in matter by true and exquisite lines"
— Bacon, Sir Francis, Lord Verulam (1561-1626)
Work Title
Date
1620
Metaphor
The ideas of the divine "are the creator's own stamp upon creation, impressed and defined in matter by true and exquisite lines"
Metaphor in Context
Again, it will be thought, no doubt, that the goal and mark of knowledge which I myself set up (the very point which I object to in others) is not the true or the best; for that the contemplation of truth is a thing worthier and loftier than all utility and magnitude of works; and that this long and anxious dwelling with experience and matter and the fluctuations of individual things, drags down the mind to earth, or rather sinks it to a very Tartarus of turmoil and confusion; removing and withdrawing it from the serene tranquillity of abstract wisdom, a condition far more heavenly. Now to this I readily assent; and indeed this which they point at as so much to be preferred, is the very thing of all others which I am about. For I am building in the human understanding a true model of the world, such as it is in fact, not such as a man's own reason would have it to be; a thing which cannot be done without a very diligent dissection and anatomy of the world. But I say that those foolish and apish images of worlds which the fancies of men have created in philosophical systems, must be utterly scattered to the winds. Be it known then how vast a difference there is (as I said above) between the Idols of the human mind and the Ideas of the divine. The former are nothing more than arbitrary abstractions; the latter are the creator's own stamp upon creation, impressed and defined in matter by true and exquisite lines. Truth therefore and utility are here the very same things†65: and works themselves are of greater value as pledges of truth than as contributing to the comforts of lif
Categories
Provenance
Searching "stamp" in Past Masters
Date of Entry
05/24/2005
