Bacon, Bacon, Bacon, Bacon! (and a little Aristotle)

In several of his mythological explanations, Bacon considers the relationship between Art, Nature, and Divinity. While reading these segments, at times I felt that Bacon established a clear limitation of what man kind could accomplish. For example, during his clarification of the Pan myth, Bacon states, "Then again that match in music and the result of it exhibits a wholesome doctrine, fit to restrain and reduce to sobriety the pride and overweening confidence of human reason and judgment. For it seems there are two kinds of harmony and music; one of divine providence, the other of human reason; and to the human judgment, and the ears as it were of mortals, the government of the world and nature, and the more secret judgments of God, sound somewhat harsh and untunable; and though this be ignorance, such as deserves to be distinguished with the ears of an ass, yet those ears are worn secretly and not in the face of the world- for it is not a thing observed or noted as a deformity by the vulgar" (Bacon, 713). Yet he also attributes to human beings incredible power: "Bacon takes the Scripture to reassure the seekers of their divine license" (Pesic, 32). What implications do these segments raise for the preparation of the scientist? What political implications does this assessment of human nature have?

Bacon also stated, "whereas certainly in my opinion both Empedocles and Democritus, who complain, the first madly enough, but the second very soberly, that all things are hidden away from us, that we know nothing, that we discern nothing, that truth is drowned in deep walls that the true and the false are strangely joined and twisted together, (for the new aademy carried it a great deal too far,) are more to be approved than the school of Aristotle so confident and dogmatical" (Bacon, 749). In Bacon's opinion, did Aristotle step beyond the bounds of human capacity with his axioms? What precisely is Bacon's problem with Aristotle?