Men should frequently call upon nature to render her account; that is, when they perceive that a body which was before manifest to the sense has escaped and disappeared, they should not admit or liquidate the account before it has been shown them where the body has gone to, and into what it has been received.

In: James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis and Douglas Denon Heath, The Works of Francis Bacon (Volume 5), Part II, Thoughts on the Nature of Things (p. 427)