Of Darkness from Vain Philosophy and Fabulous Traditions
By “Philosophy” is understood “the knowledge acquired by reasoning, from the manner of the generation of anything, to the properties: or from the properties, to some possible way of generation of the same; to the end to be able to produce, as far as matter and human force permit, such effects as human life requireth.” So the geometrician, from the construction of figures, findeth out many properties thereof; and from the properties, new ways of their construction, by reasoning; to the end to be able to measure land and water; and for infinite other uses. So the astronomer, from the rising, setting, and moving of the sun and stars, in divers parts of the heavens, findeth out the causes of day and night, and of the different seasons of the year; whereby he keepeth an account of time; and the like of other sciences.
By which definition it is evident that we are not to account as any part thereof that original knowledge called experience, in which consisteth prudence; because it is not attained by reasoning, but found as well in brute beasts as in man; and is but a memory of successions of events in times past, wherein the omission of every little circumstance altering the effect, frustrateth the expectation of the most prudent: whereas nothing is produced by reasoning aright, but general, eternal, and immutable truth.
Nor are we therefore to give that name to any false conclusions: for he that reasoneth aright in words he understandeth, can never conclude an error:
Nor to that which any man knows by supernatural revelation; because it is not acquired by reasoning: