Wikipedia – “Wissen ist Macht”, knowledge is power, is a dictum in German that goes back to the English philosopher Francis Bacon (1561-1626). In his works, Bacon laid a cornerstone of philosophy in the Age of Enlightenment and introduced Aristotelian-Christian scholasticism to the knowledge and methods of natural science.
His efforts to bring people “to a higher level of existence” were expressed in his Meditationes sacrae in 1597 in the formulation Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (because science itself is power), often shortened to scientia potestas est. In the English language version of 1598 the sentence read: “(For) knowledge (itself) is power.”
