The Idols of the Market Place are the most troublesome of all: idols which have crept into the understanding through the alliances of words and names. For men believe that their reason governs words, but it is also true that words react on the understanding; and this it is that has rendered philosophy and the sciences sophistical and inactive. Words are generally formed and imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar, and draw lines of division corresponding to popular distinctions. And when a more acute understanding or more diligent observation strives to introduce truer divisions, words stand in the way, and resist the innovation.
— Francis Bacon
Early Modern
Empiricism, scientific method
