Scientia potentia est man which constitute power; in this list, "sciences" or "the sciences" are given a minor position: In the English version this passage reads as thus: On a later work, "De Corpore" (1655), also written in Latin, Hobbes expanded the same idea: In Jean Hampton, "Hobbes and the social contract tradition" (1988), Hampton indicates that this quote is 'after Bacon' and in a footnote, that 'Hobbes was Bacon's secretary as a young man and had philosophical discussions with him (Aubrey 1898, 331). The closest expression in Bacon's works is, perhaps, the expression ""scientia potestas est"", found in his "" (1597), which
Scientia potentia est knowing and the power of working and acting, the opposite of what is assumed when the maxim is taken out of context. Indeed, the quotation has become a cliche. In another place, Bacon wrote, "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; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule." Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his essay "Old Age", included in the collection "Society and Solitude" (1870): After the 1871, unification of Germany, ""Wissen