The phrase "scientia potentia est" (or "scientia est potentia"[p] or also "scientia potestas est") is a

Latin aphorism often claimed to mean organized "knowledge is power". It is commonly

attributed to Sir Francis Bacon, although there is no known occurrence of this precise phrase in
Bacon's English or Latin writings. However, the expression "ipsa scientia potestas est"
('knowledge itself is power') occurs in Bacon's Meditationes Sacrae (1597). The exact phrase
"scientia potentia est" was written for the first time in the 1668 version of the work Leviathan by
Thomas Hobbes, who was secretary to Bacon as a young man.
The related phrase "sapientia est potentia" is often translated as "wisdom is power".
Origins and parallels[edit]

An early account of the concept is found in the Shahnameh by the Persian poet Ferdowsi (940
1020 CE) who wrote: "Capable is he who is wise" (in Persian: ) .[1] This
hemistich is translated to English as "knowledge is power" or "One who has wisdom is
powerful".[2]
Ferdowsi (940-1020), born in N.E. Iran in his book Shahnameh (Letter of Kings), wrote: "Your
power comes from your knowledge" ( Farsi). This book was written when
Persia was under the Arab occupation, and the Persians were forbidden to use their own
language. Shahnameh was written in Farsi in order to preserve the language and culture.
A proverb in practically the same wording is first found in Hebrew, in the Biblical Book of
Proverbs (24:5): - ,, - ;; -. This was translated in the latin Vulgata as "vir
sapiens et fortis est et vir doctus robustus et validus"[3] and in the King James Version, the first
English official edition, as "A wise man is strong, a man of knowledge increaseth strength".[4]
Thomas Hobbes[edit]

The first known reference of the exact phrase appeared in the Latin edition of Leviathan (1668;
the English version had been published in 1651). This passage from Part 1 ("De Homine"),
Chapter X ("De Potentia, Dignitate et Honore") occurs in a list of various attributes of man
which constitute power; in this list, "sciences" or "the sciences" are given a minor position:
Scientia potentia est, sed parva; quia scientia egregia rara est, nec proinde apparens nisi
paucissimis, et in paucis rebus. Scientiae enim ea natura est, ut esse intelligi non possit, nisi ab
illis qui sunt scientia praediti[5]
In the English version this passage reads as thus:
The sciences are small powers; because not eminent, and therefore, not acknowledged in any
man; nor are at all, but in a few, and in them, but of a few things. For science is of that nature,
as none can understand it to be, but such as in a good measure have attained it.[6]
On a later work, De Corpore (1655), also written in Latin, Hobbes expanded the same idea:

The end or scope of philosophy is, that we may make use to our benefit of effects formerly seen ...
for the commodity of human life ... The end of knowledge is power ... lastly, the scope of all
speculation is the performing of some action, or thing to be done.[7]
In Jean Hampton, Hobbes and the social contract tradition (1988), Hampton indicates that this
quote is 'after Bacon' and in a footnote, that 'Hobbes was Bacon's secretary as a young man and
had philosophical discussions with him (Aubrey 1898, 331).[8]
Francis Bacon[edit]

Sir Francis Bacon, "ipsa scientia potestas est" (knowledge itself is power).
Meditationes Sacrae (1597).

The closest expression in Bacon's works is, perhaps, the expression "scientia potestas est", found
in his Meditationes Sacrae (1597), which is perhaps better translated as "knowledge is His
power", because the context of the sentence refers to the qualities of God and is imbedded in a
discussion of heresies that deny the power of God: Dei quam potestatis; vel putius ejus partis
potestatis Dei, (nam et ipsa scientia potestas est) qua scit, quam ejus qua raovet et agit; ut
praesciat quaedam otoise, quae non praedestinet et praordinet.
The English translation of this section includes the following:
"This canon is the mother of all canons against heresies. The cause of error is
twofold : ignorance of the will of God, and ignorance or superficial
consideration of the power of God. The will of God is more revealed through
the Scriptures his power more through his creatures So is the plenitude of

Gods power to be asserted, as not to involve any imputation upon his will. So
is the goodness of his will to be asserted, as not to imply any derogation of
his power.
" Atheism and Theomachy rebels and mutinies against the power of God ;
not trusting to his word, which reveals his will, because it does not believe in
his power,to whom all things are possible But of the heresies which deny
the power of God, there are, besides simple atheism, three degrees
"The third degree is of those who limit and restrain the former opinion to
human actions only, which partake of sin: which actions they suppose to
depend substantively and without any chain of causes upon the inward will
and choice of man; and who give a wider range to the knowledge of God than
to his power; or rather to that part of Gods power (for knowledge itself is
power) whereby he knows, than to that whereby he works and acts ; suffering
him to fore know some things as an unconcerned looker on, which he does
not predestine and preordain : a notion not unlike the figment which Epicurus
introduced into the philosophy of Democritus, to get rid of fate and make
room for fortune; namely the sidelong motion of the Atom; which has ever by
the wiser sort been accounted a very empty device." (pp. 9495; Works of
Bacon, Vol XIV, Boston; Brown and Taggard, 1861)

Interpretation of the notion of power meant by Bacon must therefore take into account his
distinction between the power of knowing and the power of working and acting, the opposite of
what is assumed when the maxim is taken out of context.[9] Indeed, the quotation has become a
cliche.
In another place, Bacon wrote, "Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the
cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and
that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule."[10]
Ralph Waldo Emerson[edit]

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his essay Old Age, included in the collection Society and
Solitude (1870):
Skill to do comes of doing; knowledge comes by eyes always open, and working hands; and there
is no knowledge that is not power.[11]