Excerpt from The Works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, and Lord High Chancellor of England, Vol. 10: Being Translations of the Philosophical Works, Vol. III That Life is short and Art long is an old proverb and complaint. It appears therefore to follow naturally that I who am earnestly labouring for the perfection of arts should take thought also, by the grace and favour of the Author of Life and Truth, about the means of prolonging the life of man. For though the life of man is only a mass and accumulation of sins and sorrows, and they who aspire to eternity set little value on life; yet even we Christians should not despise the continu ance of works of charity. Besides, the beloved disci ple survived the rest, and many of the Fathers, espe cially holy monks and hermits, were long-lived; so that this blessing (so often repeated in the old law) appears to have been less withdrawn after the time of our Saviour than other earthly blessings. But to re gard this as the greatest blessing is natural how to secure it is a difficult inquiry; and the more difficult because it has been corrupted by false opinions and vain reports. For both the common phrases of physi eiaus concerning Radical Moisture and Natural Heat are deceptive, and the extravagant praises of chemical medicines only raise men's hopes to disappoint them. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.