Bringing Home the Bacon

"Man, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature: beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.
"Neither the naked hand nor the understanding left to itself can effect much. It is by instruments and helps that the work is done, which are as much wanted for the understanding as for the hand. And as the instruments of the hand either give motion or guide it, so the instruments of the mind supply either suggestions for the understanding of cautions.
"Human knowledge and human power meet in one, for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed...
"It is idle to expect any great advancement in science from the superinducing and engrafting of new things upon old.
"We must begin anew from the very foundations, unless we would revolve forever in a circle with mean and contemptible progress."
-Francis Bacon

INFO:
http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/june2006/francis_bacon.html