johnlawrenceaspden comments on Rationality Quotes June 2014 - Less Wrong

9 Post author: Tyrrell_McAllister 01 June 2014 08:32PM

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Comment author: johnlawrenceaspden 09 June 2014 11:46:13PM 29 points [-]

“The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses"

-- Francis Bacon

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/5741-the-root-of-all-superstition-is-that-men-observe-when

Comment author: RichardKennaway 10 June 2014 08:33:27AM 20 points [-]

The quote is true to Bacon's thought, and its expression much improved in the repetition. Here is the nearest to it I can find in Bacon's works on Gutenberg:

For this purpose, let us consider the false appearances that are imposed upon us by the general nature of the mind, beholding them in an example or two; as first, in that instance which is the root of all superstition, namely, that to the nature of the mind of all men it is consonant for the affirmative or active to affect more than the negative or privative. So that a few times hitting or presence countervails ofttimes failing or absence, as was well answered by Diagoras to him that showed him in Neptune's temple the great number of pictures of such as had escaped shipwreck, and had paid their vows to Neptune, saying, "Advise now, you that think it folly to invocate Neptune in tempest." "Yea, but," saith Diagoras, "where are they painted that are drowned?"

Francis Bacon, "The Advancement of Learning"