" 'The mind,' Bacon says, 'presupposes a greater unanimity and uniformity in the nature of things than there really is.' Thus, for example, astronomers have assumed that the heavenly bodies, being 'perfect', must move as the mind deems it most fitting for a perfect celestial body to move, namely in perfect circles; observation, however, shows them to move in ellipses. 'It is incredible,' he exclaims, 'what a number of idols have been introduced into philosophy by the reduction of natural operations to a correspondence with human actions; i.e. by imagining that nature acts as man does.' Why are the stars in the sky arranged as they are?--or rather, why do they appear not to be 'arranged' at all? 'If the grand architect had acted a human part, he would have ranged the stars into some beautiful and elegant order, as we see in the vaulted roofs of palaces....so great a difference is there betwixt the spirit of man and the spirit of Universe' "
Willey, B. (1965). The English Moralists. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd.
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