Scientia potentia est
The exact phrase "scientia potentia est" (knowledge is power) was written for the first time in the 1668 version of Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, who was a secretary to Bacon as a young man.
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[4]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.
[5]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 ...
[7] The closest expression in Bacon's works is, perhaps, the expression "ipsa scientia potestas est", found in his Meditationes Sacrae (1597), which is translated as "knowledge itself is power": statuuntque latiores terminos scientiae Dei quam potestatis, vel potius ejus partis potestatis Dei (nam et ipsa scientia potestas est) qua scit, quam ejus qua movet et agit: ut praesciat quaedam otiose, quae non praedestinet et praeordinet.One of many differing English translations of this section includes the following: This canon is the mother of all canons against heresies.
[10]After the 1871 unification of Germany, "Wissen ist Macht, geographisches Wissen ist Weltmacht" (Knowledge is power, geographical knowledge is world power) was often used in German geography and the public discussion to support efforts for a German colonial empire after 1880.
The German Bundeswehr Bataillon Elektronische Kampfführung 932, an electronic warfare unit based in Frankenberg (Eder), still uses the Latin version Scientia potentia est as its motto.
