“The human understanding is of its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds.”
Aphorism 45
Novum Organum (1620), Book I
Context: The human understanding is of its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds. And though there be many things in nature which are singular and unmatched, yet it devises for them parallels and conjugates and relatives which do not exist. Hence the fiction that all celestial bodies move in perfect circles, spirals and dragons being (except in name) utterly rejected.
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Francis Bacon 295
English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and auth… 1561–1626Related quotes
Dieu existe? Oui http://books.google.com.mx/books/about/Dieu_existe_Oui.html?id=TBUCHQAACAAJ&redir_esc=y (1979). Paris. Stock. Christian Chabanis, p. 94.
Original: L’ordre naturel n’est pas une invention de l’esprit humain et une mise en place de certaines propriétés d’observation... Qui dit ordre dit intelligence organisatrice. Cette intelligence ne peut être que celle de Dieu.

Foreword to The Dreaded Comparison: Animal Slavery and Human Slavery (1996) by Marjorie Spiegel, p. 14 http://books.google.com/books?ei=je4zTPjrBcmTnQfXmMCLBA&ct=result&id=8u_tAAAAMAAJ&dq=dreaded+comparison+%22exist+for+their+own%22&q=%22exist+for+their+own%22.

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