Note ar — Chapter V
Reading edition
"We can command Nature only by obeying her; nor can Art avail anything except as Nature's handmaiden. We can affect the conditions under which Nature works; but things artificial as well as things natural are in reality produced Not by Art but Nature. Our power is merely based upon our knowledge of the procedure which Nature follows. She is never really thwarted or controlled by our operations, though she may be induced to depart from her usual course, and under new and artificial conditions to produce new phenomena and new substances.
"Natural philosophy, considered from this point of view, is therefore only an answer to the question, How does Nature work in the production of phenomena?" R. L. Ellis. Preface to Bacon's Philosophical Works, Vol. I. p. 59.