It would indeed be dishonourable to mankind, if the regions of the material globe, the earth, the sea, and stars should be so prodigiously developed and illustrated in our age, and yet the boundaries of the intellectual globe should be confined to the narrow discoveries of the ancients.

The Works of Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England (Volume 14), Novum Organum, Book I (p. 60), William Pickering. 1831